YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

^JFTVERTgy

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

*

THE DAY MISSIONS LIBRARY

ie^v 'Ao V

ON MISSIONS.

ON MISSIONS,

A LECTURE
DELIVERED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ON
DECEMBER 3, 1873.

F. MAX MULLER, M. A.,
PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE, PHILOLOGY AT OXFORD.

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY SERMON

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D„
DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.

NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY.
1874.

RIVERSIDE, OAMBREDGE :
PRINTED BY H. u. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

THE END AND THE MEANS OF CHRIS
TIAN MISSIONS.

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris
tian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all
that hear me this day, were, both almost and altogether, such as I am,
except these bonds.
' 0 ie 'AypOTTraf npbc rbv TlavXov ifyr) • 'Ev bXiyu jit nudeut, ~S.piana.vbv
ysvicr&ai. '0 6i IlaiiAof elirev • Ev^aijienv av ra Oeip, nai tv bXiyu xal
kv 'KoTJiip oh povov ae, d?iAa nal iravrac Toi)<; anovovrac fxov arjiiepov,
¦yeveoftai toiovtovq, dnoioc nqryu dpi, napenrbc t&v Seapuv tovtov. —
Acts xxvi. 28, 29.
When I preached on a like occasion last year
I spoke at some length of the Prospects of
Christian Missions,1 and I ventured to give seven
grounds which the peculiar circumstances of
our time afforded for greater confidence in the
future. First, the better knowledge of the
Divine nature acquired ,by the extinction of
the once universal belief that all heathens
were everlastingly lost ; secondly, the increased
acquaintance with the heathen religions them
selves ; thirdly, the instruction which Christian
missionaries have gained or may gain from their
actual experience in foreign parts ; fourthly, the
1 Prospects of Christian Missions, a sermon preached in West
minster Abbey, on December 20, 1872. Strahan & Co., London.

6 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
recognition of the fact that the main hindrance
to the success of Christian missions arises from
the vices and sins of Christendom ; fifthly, an
acknowledgment of the indirect influences of
Christianity through legislation and civilization ;
sixthly, the recognition of the advantage of ex
act, unvarnished, impartial statements of mis
sionary labor ; seventhly, the testimony borne
by missionary experience to the common ele
ments and essential principles of the Christian
religion. On these — the peculiar grounds for hope
and for exertion in this our generation — I refer
to the observations which I then made, and
which I will not now repeat.
I propose on this occasion to make a few
remarks on the End and on the Means of Chris
tian Missions ; remarks which must of necessity
be general in their import, but which for that
reason are the more suitable to be offered by
one who cannot speak from personal and spe
cial experience.
The text is taken from a striking incident in
the life of the greatest of apostolic missionaries.
It was in the presence of Felix and Agrippa
that Paul had poured forth those few burning
utterances which to Felix seemed like madness,
but which Paul himself declared to be words of
truth and soberness. Then it was that the

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 7
Jewish prince, Agrippa — far better instructed
than the heathen Felix, and seeing deeper into
Paul's mind than he, yet still unconvinced —
broke in upon the conversation with the words
which in the English translation have well nigh
passed into a proverb, " Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian." The sense which they
thus give would be in itself perfectly suitable
to the halting, fickle character of the Herodian
family, and would accurately describe the nu
merous half-converts throughout the world —
" Almost," but not quite, " thou persuadest me
to join the good cause." But the sense which,
by the nearly universal consent of modern
scholars, they really bear in the original is
something still more instructive. The only
meaning of which the Greek words are capable
is an exclamation, half in jest and half in earn
est, " It is but a very brief and simple argument
that you offer to work so great a change ; " or,
if we may venture to bring out the sense more
fully, " So few words, and such a vast conclu
sion ! " " So slight a foundation, and so gigantic
a superstructure ! " " So scanty an outfit, and so
perilous an enterprise ! " The speech breathes
something of the spirit of Naaman, when he
was told to wash in the Jordan — " Are not
Abana and Pharpar better than all the waters
of Israel?" It is like the complaint of the

8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
popular prophets in the time of Hezekiah, whose
taste demanded stronger flavor than the noble
simplicity of Isaiah, " Line upon line, precept
upon precept." It breathes the spirit of the
Ephesian Christians who, when they heard St.
John's repeated maxim of "Little children, love
one another," said, " Is this all that he has to
tell us ? " It expresses the spirit of many an
one since, who has stumbled at the threshold of
the genuine Gospel — " So vague, so simple, so
universal. Is this worth the sacrifice that you
demand ? Give us a demonstrative argument,
a vast ceremonial, a complex system, a uniform
government. Nothing else will satisfy us."
As Agrippa's objection, so is Paul's answer.
It would have indeed borne a good sense had
he meant what in our English version he is
made to say, " I would that both ' almost and
altogether.' Halfness or wholeness — I admire
them both. Half a soul is better than none at
all. To have come half way is better than
never to have started at all ; but half is only
good, because it leads towards the whole."
Nevertheless, following the real meaning of
Agrippa's remark, St. Paul's retort, in fact,
bears a yet deeper significance — "I would
to God, that whether by little or by much,
whether by brief arguments or by long argu
ments, somehow and somewhere, the change

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 9
were wrought. The means to me are compar
atively nothing, so long as the end is accom
plished." It is the same spirit as that which
dictated the noble expression in the Epistle
to the Philippians : " Some preach Christ of
envy and strife, some also of good will. The
one preach Christ of contention, the other of
love. What then ? notwithstanding, every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is
preached." 1
And then he proceeds to vindicate the end
which makes him indifferent as to the means.
Agrippa, in his brief taunt, had said, " Such are
the arguments by which you would fain make
me a Christian." It is one of the few, one of
the only three, occasions on which that glorious
name is used in the New Testament. It is here
charged not with the venerable meaning which
we now attach to it, but with the novel and
degrading associations which it bore in the
mouth of every Jew and every Roman at that
time — of Tacitus or Josephus, no less than of
Felix or Agrippa. " Is it," so the king meant
to say, "is it that you think to make me a
Christian, a member of that despised, heretical,
innovating sect, of which the very name is a
sufficient condemnation ? "
It is only by bearing this in mind that we
1 Phil. i. 13-16

10 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
see the force of St. Paul's answer. He does
not insist on the word ; he does not fight even
for this sacred title ; he does not take it up as
a pugnacious champion might take up the
glove which his adversary had thrown down ;
he does not say, "I would that thou wast a
Christian." In his answer he bears his testimony
to one of the gravest, the most fruitful, of all
theological truths — that it is not the name
but the thing, not the form but the reality, on
which stress must be laid ; and he gives the
most lucid, heartstirring illustration of what
the reality is. " I would that not only thou, but
all those who hear me were — what is no am
biguous catchword or byword, but — what you
see before you ; I would that you all were such
as I am — such as I am, upheld by the hopes
filled with the affections, that sustain my
charmed existence;" and then, with that- ex
quisite courtesy which characterizes so many
traits of the Apostle's history, glancing at the
chains which bound him to the Roman guard
— " ' except these bonds.' This, whether you
call it Christian or not, is what I desire to see
you and all the world." "You see it before you
in the life, the character, the spirit, of one who
knows what Christianity is, and who wishes that
all his fellow-creatures should partake of the
happiness that he has gained, repose on the

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 11
same principles that give him strength." This,
then, is the statement of the greatest of mis
sionaries, both as to the end which he sought
to attain, and the means by which he and we
should seek to attain it.
I. Let us first take the End : " Such as I am,
except these bonds." That is the state to
which St. Paul desired to bring all those who
heard him. That, according to him, was the
description of a Christian. No doubt if he had
been pressed yet further, he would have said
that he meant, "Such as Jesus Christ, my
Lord." But he was satisfied with taking such
a living, human, imperfect exemplification as
he whom Felix and Agrippa saw in their pres
ence. " Such as Paul was ; " where is no am
biguous definition, no obsolete form. We know
what manner of man he was, even better than
Felix or Agrippa knew. Look at him with all
his characteristic peculiarities ; a man passion
ately devoted to his own faithful friends, and
clinging to the reminiscences of his_ race and
country, yet with a heart open to embrace all
mankind ; a man combining the strongest con
victions with an unbounded toleration of differ
ences, and an unbounded confidence in turth ;
a man penetrated with the freedom of the
Spirit, but with a profound appreciation of the
value of great existing institutions whether

12 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
civil or religious — a thorough Roman citizen
and a thorough Eastern gentleman ; a career
of daring fortitude and endurance, undertaken
in the strength of the persuasion that in Jesus
Christ of Nazareth he had seen the highest
perfection of Divine and human goodness — a
Master worth living for and worth dying for,
whose Spirit was to be the regenerating power
of the whole world. This character, this con
dition it "was to which St. Paul desired that his
hearers should be brought. One only reserva
tion he makes ; " except these bonds," except
those limitations, those circumscriptions, those
vexations, those irritations, which belonged to
the suffering, toil-worn circumstances in which
he was at that moment placed.
Such is the aim which, following the example
of their most illustrious predecessor, all mis
sionaries ought to have before their eyes. To
create, to preach, to exhibit those traits of
character, those apostolical graces, those Divine
intuitions, which even the hard Roman magis
trate and the superficial Jewish prince recog
nized in Paul of Tarsus. Where these are,
there is Christianity. In proportion as any of
these are attained, in that proportion has a
human being become a Christian. Wherever
and in proportion as these are not, there "the
missionary's labor has failed — there the seed

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 13
has been sown to no purpose — there the name
of Christian may be, but the reality is not.
This preeminence of the object of Christian
missions, — namely, the formation of heroic,
apostolic, and therefore Christian characters,
— has a wide practical importance. In these
days — when there is so much temptation to
dwell on the scaffolding, the apparatus, the or
ganization of religion, as though it were religion
itself — it is doubly necessary to bear in mind
what true Religion is, wherein lies the essential
superiority of Christianity to all the other forms
of religion on the surface of the earth. It is
not merely the baptism of thousands of infants,
such as filled a large part of the aspirations
even of so great a missionary as Francis
Xavier ; nor the adoption of the name of Christ,
as was done on so vast a scale by the ferocious
rebels of China ; nor the repetition, with ever
so much accuracy, of the Christian creed, as
was done by the pretended converts from Mo
hammedanism or Judaism, under the terrible
compulsion of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain.
Nor is it the assurance, ever so frequently re
peated, that we are saved ; nor is it the absolu
tion, ever so solemnly pronounced by a priest ;
nor is it the shedding of floods of tears ; nor is
it the adoption of voluntary self-degradation or
solitary seclusion. All these may be found in

14 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
other religions in as great, or even greater
force, than in Christianity. That which alone3
if anything, stamps Christianity as the supreme
religion, is that its essence, its object, is in none
of these things, valuable as some of them may
be as signs and symptoms of the change which
every mission is intended to effect. The change
itself, the end itself, Christianity itself, is at once
greater and simpler. It is to be such as Paul
was ; it is to produce characters, which in truth
fulness, in independence, in mercy, in purity,
in charity, may recall something of the great
Apostle, even as he recalled something of the
mind which was in Christ Jesus. It was this
clear vision of what he desired to see as the
fruits of his teaching that made St. Paul
so ready to admire whatsoever things were
lovely and of good report wherever he found
them. In Gentile or in Jew, in heathen or
in Christian, he recognized at once the spirits
kindred to his own, and welcomed them accord
ingly. He felt that he could raise them yet
higher; but he was eager to claim them as
his brethren even from the first.1 Even in the
legends which surround his history there has
been preserved something of this genuine apos-
1 Acts xiv. 16, 17 ; xvii. 23, 28 ; xix. 37; xxi. 26 ; xxii. 28 ;
xxv. 11. Rom. ii. 6-15; xiii. 1-7; xiv. 6. 1 Cor. ix. 20-22;
xv. 33. Phil. iv. 8.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 15
tolic sympathy. It was a fine touch in the
ancient Latin hymn which described how, when
he landed at Puteoli, he 'turned aside to the
hill of Pausilipo to shed a tear over the tomb
of Virgil, and thought how much he might
have made of that noble soul if he had found
him still on earth : —
" Ad Maronis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Pise rorem lacrymse —
Quantum, dixit, te fecissem
Si te vivum invenissem,
Poetarum maxime."
It was this which made him cling with such
affectionate interest to his converts, to his
friends, to his sons, as he calls them, in Christ
Jesus. All that he sought, all that he looked
for in them, was that they should show in their
characters the seal of the spirit that animated
himself. Whether they derived this character
from himself or from Apollos or Cephas he
cared not to ask. He was their pupil as much
as their master. He disclaimed all dominion
over their independent faith ; he claimed only
to be a helper in their joy.
This reproduction of Paul — this reproduc
tion of all that is best in ourselves or better
than ourselves — in the minds and hearts of
mankind, is the true work of the Christian mis
sionary ; and, in order to do this, he must be

16 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
himself that which he wishes to impress upon
them in humility, goodness, courtesy, and holi
ness, except only the straitening bonds which
cramp or confine each separate character, na
tion, and church. No disparager of Christian
missions can dispute this — no champion of
Christian missions need go beyond this. When,
in the last century, the Danish missionary,
Schwarz, was pursuing his labors at Tanjore,
and the Rajah Hyder Ali desired to treat with
the English Government, he said : " Do not
send to me any of your agents, for I trust
neither their words nor their treaties. But
send to me the missionary of whose character
I hear so much from every one ; him will I
receive and trust." That was the electrifying,
vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one
as Paul — "a man who had indeed done noth
ing worthy of bonds or of death " — a man in
whose entire disinterestedness and in whose
transparent honor the image and superscription
of his Master was written so that no one could
mistake it. " In every nation, he that feareth
God and worketh righteousness " is the noblest
work of God our Creator — the most precious
result of human endeavor. If any such by mis
sionary efforts, either convert or teacher, either
direct or indirect, have been produced, then the
prayers uttered, the labors inspired, the hopes

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 17
expressed in these and like services have not
been altogether in vain. One of the most
striking facts to which our attention has been
called as demanding our thankfulness on this
day is the solemn testimony borne by the Gov
ernment of India to the fruits of " the blame
less lives and self-denying labors of their six
hundred Protestant missionaries." And what
are those fruits ? Not merely the adoption of
this or that outward form of Christianity by
this or that section of the Indian community.
It is something which is in appearance less, but
in reality far greater than this. It is something
less like the question of Agrippa, but far more
like the answer of Paul. It is that they have
" infused new vigor into the stereotyped life
of the vast populations placed under English
rule ; " it is that they are " preparing those
populations to be in every way better men and
better citizens of the great Empire under which
they dwell." That is a verdict on which we can
rest with the assurance that it is not likely to be
reversed. Individual conversions may relapse
— may be accounted for by special motives ;
but long-sustained, wide-reaching changes of
the whole tenor and bent of a man or of a na
tion are beyond suspicion. When we see the
immovable and, as the official document says,
u the stereotyped " forms of Indian life reani-
2

18 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
mated with a vigor unknown to the Oriental
races in earlier days, this is a regeneration as
surprising as that which, to a famous missionary
of the past generation, seemed as impossible as
the restoration of a mummy to life — namely,
the conversion of a single Brahmin.
This, then, is the End of Christian missions,
whether to heathens or to Christians, namely,
to make better men and better citizens — to
raise the whole of society by inspiring it with a
higher view of duty, with a stronger sense of
truth ; with a more powerful conviction that
only by goodness and truth can God be ap
proached or Christ be served — that God is
goodness and truth, and that Christ is the
Image of God, because He is goodness and
truth. If this be the legitimate result of Chris
tianity, no further arguments are needed to
prove that it contains a light which is worth
imparting, and which, whenever it is imparted,
vindicates its heavenly origin and its heaven
ward tendency.
II. This is the End ; and now what are the
Means ? They are what we might expect in
the view of so great an end. Anything (so the
Apostle tells us), be it small or great, short or
long, scanty or ample ; the manners of a Jew
for Jews, the manners of a Gentile for Gentiles,
" all things for all men," 2 are worth considering,
1 1 Cor. ix. 20-22.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 19
if "by any of these means he might save," that
is, elevate, sanctify, purify, any of those to
whom he spoke. When we reflect upon the
many various efforts to do good in this mani
fold world — the multitude of sermons, societies,
agencies, excitements, which to some seem as
futile and fruitless as to others they seem pre
cious and important — it is a true consolation
to bear in mind the Apostle's wise and gener
ous maxim, " Whether by little or by much,
whether in pretense or in truth, whether of
strife or of good-will, Christ is preached, and I
therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." It may
be by a short, sudden, electric shock, or it may
be by a long course of civilizing, humanizing
tendencies. It may be by a single text, such
as that which awoke the conscience of Augus
tine ; or a single interview, like Justin's with
the unknown philosopher ; or it may be by a
long systematic treatise — Butler's "Analogy,"
or Lardner's " Credibilia," or the " Institutes"
of Calvin, or the " Summa Theologise " of
Aquinas. It may be by the sudden flush of
victory in battle, such as convinced Clovis on
the field of Tolbiac ; or the argument of a
peaceful conference, such as convinced our own
Ethelbert. It may be by teachers steeped in
what was by half the Christian world regarded
as deadly heresy, such as the Arian Bishop

20 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
Ulfilas, by whom were converted to the faith
those mighty Gothic tribes which formed the
first elements of European Christendom, and
whose good deeds Augustine regarded, not
withstanding their errors, as the glory of the
Christian name.1 It may be by teachers as
immersed in strange and fanciful superstitions,
now repudiated by the civilized world, as was
the famous Roman Pontiff who sent the first
missionaries to these shores. Sometimes the
change has been effected by the sight of a
single picture, as when Vladimir of Russia was
shown the representation of the Last Judg
ment, — sometimes by a dream or a sign,
known only to those who were affected by it,
such as the vision of the Cross which arrested
Constantine on his way to Rome, or changed
Colonel Gardiner's dissolute youth to a man
hood of strict and sober piety. Sometimes it
has been by the earnest preaching of mis
sionaries, confessedly ill-educated and ill-pre
pared for the work which they had to accom
plish ; sometimes by the slow infiltration of
Christian literature and Christian civilization ;
1 In the well-known passage where, speaking of their modera
tion and humanity in the capture of Rome, he concludes : " Hoc
Christi nomini, hoc Christiano tempori tribuendum quisquis non
videt, caacus ; quisquis non laudat, ingratus ; quisquis laudanti
reluctatur, ingratus est." — De Civitate Dei, i. c. 7. Compare
Ibid. c. 1, and Sermon cv., De Ev. S. Luc.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 21
the grandeur, in old days, of Rome and Con
stantinople ; in our days, the superiority of
European genius, the spread of English com
merce, the establishment of just laws, pure
homes, merciful institutions.
We do not say that all these means are
equally good or equally efficacious. St. Paul,
in his argument with Agrippa, did not mean to
say that " almost and altogether," that " much
and little," were the same ; he did not mean
that it was equally good that Christ should be
preached in strife or in good-will ; he did not
mean that a good end justified bad means, or
that we may do evil that good may come ; he
did not mean to justify the falsehoods which are
profanely called pious frauds, nor the persecu
tions which have been set on foot by those who
thought to do God service, or the attempt to
stimulate artificial excitement by undermining
the moral strength and manly independence
of the human spirit. God forbid ! But what he
meant, and what we mean with him, is this :
In true Christian missions, in the conversion of
human souls from dead works, from sin, from
folly, from barbarism, from hardness, from self
ishness, to goodness and purity, justice and
truth, the field is so vast, the diversity of char
acter in men and nations is so infinite, the en
terprise so arduous, the aspects of Divine truth

22 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
so various, that it is on the one hand a duty
for each one to follow out that particular means
of conversion which seems to him most effica
cious, and on the other hand to acquiesce in the
converging use ofmany means which cannot, by
the nature of the case, appear equally efficacious
to every one. Such a toleration, such an adop
tion of the different modes of carrying on what
John Bunyan called the Holy War, the Siege
of Man's Soul, must indeed be always con
trolled by the determination to keep the high,
paramount, universal end always in view; by
the vigilant endeavor to repress the exaggera
tion, to denounce the follies and the falsehoods
which infect even the best attempts of narrow
and fallible, though good and faithful, servants
of their Lord. But, if once we have this fixed
in our minds, it then surely becomes a solace to
remember that the soul of man is won by a
thousand different approaches — that thus the
instruments which often seem most unworthy
may yet serve to produce a result far above
themselves — that when "we have toiled all
night and taken nothing " by keeping close to
the shore, or by throwing out our nets always
on one side, yet if we have courage " to launch
out into the deep, and cast out our nets on the
other side of the ship," we shall " inclose a
great multitude of fishes, so that the net shall
break."

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 23
He is a traitor to the cause who exalts the
means above the end, or who seeks an end alto
gether different from that to which his alle
giance binds him ; but he is not a traitor, but a
faithful soldier, who makes the best use of all
the means that are placed in his hands. Long
after the imperfect instruments have perished
the results will endure, and in forms wholly un
like the insufficiency or the meagreness of the
first propelling cause. The preaching of Henry
Martyn may have been tinged by a zeal often
not according to knowledge ; but the savor of
his holy and self-denying life has passed like
a sweet-smelling incense through the whole
frame-work of Indian society. " Even," so he
said himself, " if I should never see a native
converted, God may design by my patience and
continuance in the work to encourage future
missionaries." The more profoundly we are impressed with
the degradation of the heathen nations, with
the corruption of the Christian churches, the
more thankful should we be for any attempts,
however slight and however various, to quicken
the sluggish mass, and enlighten the blackness
of the night, provided only that the mass is
permanently quickened, and the darkness is in
any measure dispelled. " I have lived too long,"
said Lord Macaulay on his return from India to

24 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
England, " I have lived too long in a country
where people worship cows, to think much of
the differences which part Christians from Chris
tians." And, in fact, as the official report to
which I have referred testifies in strong terms,
the presence of the great evils which Indian
missionaries have to confront, has often pro
duced in them a noble and truly Christian in
difference to the trivial divergences between
themselves. "Even a one-eyed man," says the
proverb, " is a king amongst the blind." Even
the shepherd's sling may perchance smite down
the Goliath of Gath. The rough sledge-hammer
of a rustic preacher may strike home, where
the most polished scholar would plead in vain.
The calm judgment of the wise and good, or
the silent example, or the understanding sym
pathy, or the wide survey of the whole field of
the religions of mankind, may awaken con
victions which all the declamations of all the
churches would fail to arouse.
The misery of the war on the coast of Africa,
the terrible prospect of the Indian famine, may
furnish the very opening which we most desire.
They may be the very touchstones by which
these suffering heathens will test the practical
efficiency of a Christian government and a
Christian nation, of Christian missionaries and
Christian people, and, having so tested it, will
judge.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 25
When the first Napoleon suddenly found
himself among the quicksands of the Red Sea,
he ordered his generals to ride out in so many
opposite directions, and the first who arrived
on firm ground to call on the rest to follow.
This is what we may ask of all the various
schemes and agencies — all the various in
quiries after truth now at work in all the dif
ferent branches and classes of Christendom
— " Ride out amongst those quicksands ! Ride
out in the most opposite directions, and let him
that first finds solid ground call out to us ! It
may perchance be the very ground in the midst
of this quaking morass where we shall be able
to stand firm and move the world."
There is one special variety of means which
I would venture to name in conclusion. Ever
since the close of the Apostolic age there have
been two separate agencies in the Christian
Church by which the work of conversion has
been carried on. The chief, the recognized, the
ordinary agency has been that of the clergy.
Every pastor, every presbyter, every bishop in
the Church of the Roman Empire, and again in
the beginning of Christian Europe was, in the
strict sense of the word, a missionary ; and al
though their functions have in these latter days
been for the most part best fulfilled by follow
ing their stationary, fixed, pastoral charges, yet

26 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
it is still from their ranks in all the different
churches that the noble army of missionaries
and martyrs in foreign lands has been, and is,
and must be recruited. Most unwise and un
worthy would be any word which should under
rate the importance of this mighty element in
the work of renewing the face of the earth.
But there has always been recognized, more or
less distinctly, the agency of Christian laymen
in this same work of evangelization. Not only
in that more general sense in which I have
already indicated the effect of the laws, and
literature, and influence of Christian Europe
— not only in that unquestionable sense in
which the best of all missionaries is a high-
minded governor, or an upright magistrate,, or
a devout and pure-minded soldier, who is al
ways " trusting in God and doing his duty ; "
not only in these senses do we look for the co
operation of laymen, but also in the more direct
forms of instruction, of intelligent and far-seeing
interest in labors, which, though carried on
mainly by the clergy, must, if they are to be
good for anything, concern all mankind alike.
In the early centuries of Christianity the aid of
laymen was freely invoked and freely given in
this great cause. Such was Origen, the most
learned and the most gifted of the Fathers, who
preached as a layman in the presence of pres-

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 27
byters and bishops. Such was one of the first
evangelizers of India, Pantsenus ; such was
the hermit Telemachus, whose earnest protest,
aided by his heroic death, extinguished at Rome
the horrors of the gladiatorial games ; such was
Antony, the mighty preacher in the wilds of
the Thebaid and the streets of Alexandria;
such, in later days, was Francis of Assisi, when
first he began his career as the most famous
preacher of the Middle Ages ; such, just before
the Reformation, was our own Sir Thomas
More.1 In these instances, as in many others,
the influence, the learning, the zeal of laymen
was directly imported into the work of Chris
tianizing the nations of Europe. It is for this
reason that we, in our age also, so far as the
law and order of our churches permit, have fre
quently received the assistance of laymen ;
who, by the weight of their character or their
knowledge, can render a fresh testimony, or
throw a fresh light on subjects where we, the
clergy, should perhaps be heard less willingly.
As their voices have been raised on this sacred
subject of missions in many a humbe parish
1 " Sir Thomas More after he was called to the Bar in Lin
coln's Inn did, for a considerable time, read a public lecture
out of St. Augustine De Civitate Dei, in the Church of St. Law
rence in the Old Jewry, to which the learneder sort of the
City of London did resort." — Wood's A thence Oxonienses, fol.
ed. 1721, pp. 182, 183.

28 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
church ; as also on other sacred topics, such as
Christian art and history, their words have often
been heard within the consecrated walls of this
and other great abbeys and cathedrals, — so
we shall have the privilege of listening this
evening in the nave of this church to a scholar
renowned throughout the world, whose knowl
edge of all heathen religions in connection with
the experience of Christian missions probably
exceeds that of any other single person in
Europe — in the hope that a more systematic
form may thus be given to our knowledge, and
a more concentrated direction to our zeal.
I conclude by once more applying the Apos
tle's words to the Means and the End of Chris
tian missions. We would to God that whether
by little or by much, whether by sudden stroke
or by elaborate reasoning, whether in a brief
moment or by long process of years, whether
by the fervor of active clergy, or by the learn
ing of impartial laymen, whether by illiterate
simplicity or by wide philosophy — not only
those who hear me, but all on whom the ser
vices of this day, far and near, have any influ
ence, may become, at least in some degree,
such as was Paul the Apostle, such as have been
the wisest and best of Christian missionaries,
except only those bonds which belong to time
and place, not to the Eternal Spirit and the

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 29
Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can
not wish a better wish or pray a better prayer
to God on this day than that amongst the mis
sionaries who teach, amongst the heathens who
hear, there should be raised up men who should
exhibit that type of Christian truth and of
Christian life which was seen by Felix and
Agrippa in Paul of Tarsus. May the Giver
of all good gifts give to us some portion of his
cheerful and manly faith, of his fearless energy,
of his horror of narrowness and superstition,
of his love for God and for mankind, of his ab
solute faith in the triumph of his Redeemer's
cause. May God our Father waken in us the
sense that we are all his children ; may the
whole earth become more and more one fold
under one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ his
Son ; may the Holy Spirit
" Our souls inspire,
And lighten with celestial fire."

LECTURE ON MISSIONS,
DELIVERED IN THE
NAVE OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
ON THE
Evening of December 3, 1873,
BY
PROFESSOR MAX MULLER.

LECTURE ON MISSIONS.

The number of religions which have attained
stability and permanence in the history Number or
of the world is very small. If we leave ite%S.
out of consideration those vague and varying
forms of faith and worship which we find among
uncivilized 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 num
ber : 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

34 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
the present day ; you have before you in broad
outlines the religious map of the whole world.
All these religions, however, have a history,
comparative a history more deeply interesting than
"felons? the history of language, of literature, of
art, or politics. Religions are not unchange
able ; 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 in
dependent 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 studied together, if
we wish to understand their real character,
their growth, their decay, and their resuscita
tions. Thus, Mohammedanism would be unin
telligible 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 mutu
ally unintelligible, have been scientifically ar-

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 35
ranged and classified ; and by a comparison of
those points which all or some of them share
in common, as well as by a determination of
those which are peculiar to each, a new science
has been called into life, a science which con
cerns 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 x which
have been applied to the religions of
1 L ° Missionary
the world, there is one that interests mitw^iy
us more immediately to-night, I mean e'SI0Q8'
the division into 'Non-Missionary and Missionary
religions. This is by no means, as might be
supposed, a classification based on an unim
portant 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 and
Semitic world, there are three that are op
posed 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. Judaism.
Their religion was to them a treasure, a privi
lege, a blessing, something to distinguish them,

36 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
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 (cna),
as Proselytes (t/ooo-jjWoi); which means men who
have come to them as aliens, not to be trusted,
as their saying was, until the twenty-fourth
generation.2 A very similar feeling prevented the Brah-
Brahman- mans from ever attempting to prosely-
isin' tize 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 ; 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.3
The Parsi, too, does not wish for converts to
his religion ; he is proud of his faith,
as of his blood; and though he believes
in the final victory of truth and light, though
he says to every man, ' Be bright as the sun,
pure as the moon,' he himself does very little
to drive away spiritual darkness from the face
of the earth, by letting the light that is within
him shine before the world.

Zoroastri- anism.

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 37
But now let us look at the other cluster of
religions, at Buddhism, Mohammedanism^ Missiona
and Christianity. However they may EeUs'onB-
differ from each other in some of their most
essential doctrines, this they share in common
— they all have faith in themselves, they all
have life and vigor, they want to convince, they
mean to conquer. Prom the very earliest dawn
of their existence these three religions were
missionary : their very founders, or their first
apostles, recognized the new duty of spreading
the truth, of refuting error, of bringing the
whole world to acknowledge the paramount, if
not the divine, authority of their doctrines.
That is what gives to them all a common ex
pression, and lifts them high above the level of
the other religions of the world.
Let us begin with Buddhism. We know, in
deed, very little of its origin and ear- Buddhism.
nest growth, for the earliest beginnings of all
religions withdraw themselves by necessity
from the eye of the historian. But we have
something like contemporary evidence of the
Great Council, held at Pataliputra, 246 b. c, in
which the sacred canon of the Buddhist scrip
tures was settled, and at the end of which mis
sionaries were chosen and sent forth to preach
the new doctrine, not only in India, but far be
yond the frontiers of that vast country.4 We

38 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
possess inscriptions containing the edicts of the
king who was to Buddhism what Constantine
was to Christianity, who broke with the tradi
tions of the old religion of the Brahmans, and
recognized the doctrines of Buddha as the state
religion of India. We possess the description
of that Buddhist Council, which was to India
what the Council of Nicaea, 570 years later,
was to Europe ; and we can still read there 5
the simple story, how the chief Elder who had
presided over the Council, an old man, too
weak to travel by land, and carried from his
hermitage to the Council in a boat — how that
man, when the Council was over, began to re
flect on the future, and found that the time
had come to establish the religion of Buddha
in foreign countries. He therefore dispatched
some of the most eminent priests to Cashmere,
Cabul, and farther west, to the colonies founded
by the Greeks in Bactria, to Alexandria on the
Caucasus, and other cities. He sent others
northward to Nepaul, and to the inhabited por
tions of the Himalayan mountains. Another
mission proceeded to the Dekhan, to the peo
ple of Mysore, to the Mahrattas, perhaps to
Goa; nay, even Birma and Ceylon are men
tioned as among the earliest missionary stations
of Buddhist priests. We still possess accounts
of their manner of preaching. When threat-

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 39
ened by infuriated crowds, one of those Bud
dhist missionaries said calmly, "Even if the gods
were united with men, they would not frighten
me away." And when he had brought the peo
ple to listen, he dismissed them with the simple
prayer, " Do not hereafter give way to pride
and anger ; care for the happiness of all living
beings, and abstain from violence. Extend your
good-will to all mankind ; let there be peace
among the dwellers on earth."
No doubt, the accounts of the successes
achieved by those early missionaries are exag
gerated, and their fights with snakes and drag
ons and evil spirits remind us sometimes of the
legendary accounts of the achievements of such
men as St. Patrick in Ireland, or St. Boniface in
Germany. But the fact that missionaries were
sent out to convert the world seems beyond
the reach of doubt ; 6 and this fact represents to
us at that time a new thought, new, not only
in the history of India, but in the history of
the whole world. The recognition of a duty
to preach the truth to every man, woman, and
child, was an idea opposed to the deepest in
stincts of Brahmanism ; and when, at the end
of the chapter on the first missions, we read
the simple words of the old chronicler, " Who
would demur, if the salvation of the world is at
stake ? " we feel at once that we move in a new

40 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
world, we see the dawn of a new day, the open
ing of vaster horizons — we feel, for the first
time in the history of the world, the beating of
the great heart of humanity.
The Koran breathes a different spirit ; it does
Mohamme- n°t mvite, it rather compels the world
1 u to come in. Yet there are passages,
particularly in the earlier portions, which show
that Mohammed, too, had realized the idea of
humanity, and of a religion of humanity ; nay,
that at first he wished to unite his own relig
ion with that of the Jews and Christians, com
prehending all under the common name of
Islam. Islam meant originally humility or de
votion; and all who humbled themselves be
fore God, and were filled with real revernece,
were called Moslim. " The Islam," says Mo
hammed, " is the true worship of God. When
men dispute with you, say, ' I am a Moslim.'
Ask those who have sacred books, and ask the
heathen : ' Are you Moslim ? ' If they are,
they are on the right path ; but if they turn
away, then you have no other task but to de
liver the message, to preach to them the
Islam." 6
As to our own religion, its very soul is mis-
cnristianity. sionary, progressive, world-embracing ;
it would cease to exist if it ceased to be mis
sionary — if it disregarded the parting words

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. »41
of its Pounder : " Go ye therefore and teach
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ;
teaching them to observe all things I have
commanded; and, lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world."
It is this missionary character, peculiar to
these three religions, Buddhism, Mohammedan
ism, and Christianity, which binds them to
gether, and lifts them to a higher sphere.
Their differences, no doubt, are great ; on some
points they are opposed to each other like day
and night. But they could not be what they
are, they could not have achieved what they
have achieved, unless the spirit of truth and
the spirit of love had been alive in the hearts
of their founders, their first messengers, and
missionaries. The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all
religion, and where it exists it must The spirit
manifest itself, it must plead, it must
persuade, it must convince and convert. Mis
sionary work, however, in the usual sense of
the word, is only one manifestation of that
spirit ; for the same spirit which fills the heart
of the missionary with daring abroad, gives
courage also to the preacher at home, bearing
witness to the truth that is within him. The
religions which can boast of missionaries who

42 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
left the old home of their childhood, and parted
with parents and friends — never to meet
again in this life — who went into the wilder
ness, willing to spend a life of toil among
strangers, ready, if need be, to lay down their
life as witnesses to the truth, as martyrs for
the glory of God — the same religions are rich
also in those honest and intrepid inquirers who,
at the bidding of the same spirit of truth, were
ready to leave behind them the cherished creed
of their childhood, to separate from the friends
they loved best, to stand alone among men
that shrug their shoulders, and ask " What is
truth ? " and to bear in silence a martyrdom
more galling often than death itself. There
are men who say that, if they held the whole
truth in their hand, they would not open one
finger. Such men know little of the working
of the spirit of truth, of the true missionary
spirit. As long as there is doubt and darkness
and anxiety in the soul of an inquirer, reti
cence may be his natural attitude. But when
once doubt has yielded to certainty, darkness
to light, anxiety to joy, the rays of truth will
burst forth ; and to close our hand or to shut
our lips, would be as impossible as for the
petals of a flower to shut themselves against
the summons of the sun of spring.
What is there in this short life that should

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 43
seal our lips ? What should we wait for, if we
are not to speak here and now ? There is mis
sionary work at home as much as abroad;
there are thousands waiting to listen, if one
man will but speak the truth, and nothing but
the truth ; there are thousands starving, be
cause they cannot find that food which is con
venient for them.
And even if the spirit of truth might be
chained down by fear or prudence, the The s Mtof
spirit of love would never yield. Once l0Te'
recognize the common brotherhood of man
kind, not as a name or a theory, but as a real
bond, as a bond more binding, more lasting
than the bonds of family, caste, and race, and
the questions, Why should I open my hand ?
Why should I open my heart ? Why should I
speak to my brother ? will never be asked
again. Is it not far better to speak than to
walk through life silent, unknown, unknowing ?
Has any one of us ever spoken to his friend,
and opened to him his inmost soul, and been
answered with harshness or repelled with
scorn ? Has any one of us, be he priest or
layman, ever listened to the honest question
ings of a truth-loving soul, without feeling his
own soul filled with love ? aye, without feeling
humbled by the very honesty of a brother's
confession ?

44 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
If we would but confess, friend to friend, if
we would be but honest, man to man, we
should not want confessors or confessionals.
If our doubts and difficulties are self-made,
if they can be removed by wiser and better
men, why not give to our brother the oppor
tunity of helping us ? But if our difficulties
are not self-made, if they are not due either to
ignorance or presumption, is it not even then
better for us to know that we are all carrying
the same burden, the common burden of hu
manity, if haply we may find, that for the
heavy laden there is but one who can give
them rest.
There may be times when silence is gold,
and speech silver : but there are times also
when silence is death, and speech is life — the
very life of Pentecost.
How can man be afraid of man ? How can
we be afraid of those whom we love ?
Are the young afraid of the old ? But noth
ing delights the older man more than to see
that he is trusted by the young, and that they
believe he will tell them the truth.
Are the old afraid of the young ? But noth
ing sustains the young more than to know that
they do not stand alone in their troubles, and
that in many trials of the soul the father is as
helpless as the child.

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 45
Are women afraid of men ? But men are
not wiser in the things appertaining to God
than -women, and real love of God is theirs far
more than ours.
Are men afraid of women ? But though
women may hide their troubles more carefully,
their heart aches as much as ours, when they
whisper to themselves, " Lord, I believe, help
thou my unbelief."
Are the laity afraid of the clergy? But
where is the clergyman who would not respect
honest doubt more than unquestioning faith ?
Are the clergy afraid of the laity ? But
surely we know in this place that the clear
voice of honesty and humility draws more
hearts than the harsh accents of dogmatic as
surance or ecclesiastic exclusiveness.
A missionary must know no fear ; his heart
must overflow with love — love of man, love
of truth, love of God ; and in this, the highest
and truest sense of the word, every Christian
is, or ought to be, a missionary.
And now, let us look again at the religions in
which the missionary spirit has been at The fate of
T . .. non-mission-
WOrk, and compare them with those in aryreugions.
which any attempt to convince others by argu
ment, to save souls, to bear witness to the truth,
is treated with pity or scorn. The former are
alive, the latter are dying or dead.

46 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
The religion of Zoroaster, — the religion of
zoroastri- Cyrus, of Darius and Xerxes, — which,
anism' but for the battles of Marathon and
of Salamis, might have become the religion of
the civilized world, is now professed by only
100,000 souls — that is, by about a ten-thou
sandth part of the inhabitants of the world.
During the last two centuries their number has
steadily decreased from four to one hundred
thousand, and another century will probably
exhaust what is still left of the worshippers of
the Wise Spirit, Ahuramazda.
The Jews are about thirty times the number
Judaism. of the Parsis, and they therefore rep
resent a more appreciable portion of mankind.
Though it is not likely that they will ever in
crease in number, yet such is their physical
vigor and their intellectual tenacity, such also
their pride of race and their faith in Jehovah,
that we can hardly imagine that their patri
archal religion and their ancient customs will
soon vanish from the face of the earth.
But though the religions of the Parsis and
Jews might justly seem to have paid
the penalty of their anti-missionary
spirit, how, it will be said, can the same be
maintained with regard to the religion of the
Brahmans ? That religion is still professed by
at least 110,000,000 of human souls, and, to

Brahman- ism.

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 47
judge from the last census, even that enormous
number falls much short of the real truth. And
yet I do not shrink from saying that their reli
gion is dying or dead. And why ? Because it
cannot stand the light of day. The worship of
Siva, of Vishnu, and the other popular deities,
is of the same, nay, in many cases of a more de
graded and savage character than the worship
of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva ; it belongs to
a stratum of thought which is long buried be
neath our feet ; it may live on, like the lion
and the tiger, but the mere air of free thought
and civilized life will extinguish it. A religion
may linger on for a long time, it may be ac
cepted by the large masses of the people, be
cause it is there, and there is nothing better.
But when a religion has ceased, to produce de
fenders of the faith, prophets, champions, mar
tyrs, it has ceased to live ; and in this sense
Brahmanism has ceased to live for more than a
thousand years.
It is true there are millions of children,
women, and men in India who fall down before
the stone image of Vishnu, with his four arms,
riding on a creature half bird, half man, or
sleeping on the serpent ; who worship Siva, a
monster with three eyes, riding naked on a
bull, with a necklace of skulls for his ornament.
There are human beings who still believe in a

48 - LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
god of war, Kartikeya, with six faces, riding on
a peacock, and holding bow and arrow in his
hands ; and who invoke a god of success, Gan-
esa, with four hands and an elephant's head,
sitting on a rat. Nay, it is true that, in the
broad daylight of the nineteenth century, the
figure of the goddess Kali is carried through
the streets of her own city, Calcutta,8 her wild
disheveled hair reaching to her feet, with a
necklace of human heads, her tongue protruded
from her mouth, her girdle stained with blood.
All this is true ; but ask any Hindu who can
read and write and think, whether these are
the gods he believes in, and he will smile at
your credulity. How long this living death of
national religion in India may last, no one can
tell : for our purposes, however, for gaining an
idea of the issue of the great religious struggle
of the future, that religion too is dead and
gone. The three religions which are alive, and be-
The three tween which the decisive battle for the
HviDg re- . .
jugions. dominion of the world will have to be
fought, are the three missionary religions, Bud
dhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. Though
religious statistics are perhaps the most uncer
tain of all, yet it is well to have a general con
ception of the forces of our enemies ; and it is
well to know that, though the number of Chris-

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 49
tians is double the number of Mohammedans,
the Buddhist religion still occupies the first
place in the religious census of mankind.9
Buddhism rules supreme in Central, North
ern, Eastern, and Southern Asia, and it grad
ually absorbs whatever there is left of aborig
inal heathenism in that vast and populous area.
Mohammedanism claims as its own Arabia,
Persia, great parts of India, Asia Minor, Turkey,
and Egypt; and its greatest conquests by mis
sionary efforts are made among the heathen
population of Africa.
Christianity reigns in Europe and America,
and it is conquering the native races of Poly
nesia and Melanesia, while its missionary out
posts are scattered all over the world.
Between these three powers, then, the re
ligious battle of the future, the Holy War of
mankind will have to be fought, and is being
fought at the present moment, though appar-
' ently with little effect. To convert a Moham
medan is difficult ; to convert a Buddhist, more
difficult still; to convert a Christian, let us
hope, well nigh impossible.
What then, it may be asked, is the use of
missionaries ? Why should we spend 01?je?tg of
millions on foreign missions, when mM910nB-
there are children in our cities who are allowed
to grow up in ignorance ? Why should we de-

50 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
prive ourselves of some of the noblest, boldest,
most ardent and devoted spirits and send them
into the wilderness, while so many laborers are
wanted in the vineyard at home ?
It is right to ask these questions ; and we
ought not to blame those political economists
who tell us that every convert costs us £200,
and that at the present rate of progress it would
take more than 200,000 years to evangelize the
world. There is nothing at all startling in
these figures. Every child born in Europe is
as much a heathen as the child of a Melanesian
cannibal; and it costs us more than £200 to
turn a child into a Christian man. The other
calculation is totally erroneous, for an intellect
ual harvest must not be calculated by adding
simply grain to grain, but by counting each
grain as a living seed, that will bring forth fruit
a hundred and a thousand fold.
If we want to know what work there is for
patemai the missionary to do, what results we
may expect from it, we must distin-
ish between two kinds of work : the one is
parental, the other controversial. Among unciv
ilized races the work of the missionary is the
work of a parent ; whether his pupils are young
in years or old, he has to treat them with a
parent's love, to teach them with a parent's au
thority ; he has to win them, not to argue with

missions.

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 51
them. I know this kind of missionary work is
often despised ; it is called mere religious kid
napping ; and it is said that missionary success
obtained by such means proves nothing for the
truth of Christianity; that the child handed
over to a Mohammedan would grow up a Mo
hammedan, as much as a child taken by a
Christian missionary becomes a Christian. All
this is true; missionary success obtained by such
means proves nothing for the truth of our
Creeds : but it proves, what is far more impor
tant, it proves Christian love. Read only the
"Life of Patteson," the Bishop of Melanesia;
follow him in his vessel, sailing from island to
island, begging for children, carrying them off
as a mother her new-born child, nursing them,
washing and combing them, clothing them,
feeding them, teaching them in his Episcopal
Palace, in which he himself is everything, nurse
and -housemaid, and cook, school-master, physi
cian, and Bishop — read there, how that man
who tore himself away from his aged father
from his friends, from his favorite studies arid
pursuits, had the most loving of hearts for these
children, how indignantly he repelled for them
the name of savages, how he trusted them, re
spected them, honored them, and when they
were formed and established, took them back
to their island homes, there to be a leaven for

52 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
future ages. Yes, read the life, the work, the
death of that man, a death in very truth, a ran
som for the sins of others — and then say
whether you would like to suppress a profession
that can call forth such self-denial, such heroism,
such sanctity, such love. It has been my priv
ilege to have known some of the finest and
noblest spirits which England has produced
during this century, but there is none to whose
memory I look up with greater reverence, none
by whose friendship I feel more deeply humbled
than by that of that true saint, that true mar
tyr, that truly parental missionary.
The work of the parental missionary is clear,
and its success undeniable, not only in Poly
nesia and Melanesia, but in many parts of
India (think only of the bright light of Tin-
nevelly), in Africa, in China, in America, in
Syria, in Turkey, aye, in the very heart of Lon
don. The case is different with the controversial
. , missionary, who has to attack the faith
Controversial •/ '
missions. 0£ men bought Up [Q other religions,
in religions which contain much truth, though
mixed up with much error. Here the difficul
ties are immense, the results very discouraging.
Nor need we wonder at this. We know, each
of us, but too well, how little argument avails
in theological discussion ; how often it produces

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 53
the very opposite result of what we expected ;
confirming rather than shaking opinions no less
erroneous, no less indefensible, than many ar
ticles of the Mohammedan or Buddhist faith.
And even when argument proves successful,
when it forces a verdict from an unwilling
judge, how often has the result been disap
pointing ; because in tearing up the rotten stem
on which the tree rested, its tenderest fibres
have been injured, its roots unsettled, its life
destroyed. We have little ground to expect that these
controversial weapons will carry the day in the
struggle between the three great religions of
the world.
But there is a third kind of missionary ac
tivity, which has produced the most indirect in-
important results, and through which Christianity.
alone, I believe, the final victory will be gained.
Whenever two religions are brought into con
tact, when members of each live together in
peace, abstaining from all direct attempts at
conversion, whether by force or by argument,
though conscious all the time of the fact that
they and their religion are on their trial, that
they are being watched, that they are respon
sible for all they say and do — the effect has
always been the greatest blessing to both. It
calls out all the best elements in each, and at

54 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
the same time keeps under all that is felt to be
of doubtful value, of uncertain truth. When
ever this has happened in the history of the
world, it has generally led ^either to the reform
of both systems, or to the foundation of a new
religion. When after the conquest of India the vio-
. lent measures for the conversion of
Influence of
Smmoned" the Hindus to Mohammedanism had
Brahmanism. t i -\t l i it-»i
ceased, and Mohammedans and Brah
mans lived together in the enjoyment of per
fect equality, the result was a purified Moham
medanism, and a purified Brahmanism.10 The
worshippers of Vishnu, Siva, and other deities
became ashamed of these mythological gods ;
and were led to admit that there was, either
over and above these individual deities, or in
stead of them, a higher divine power (the
Para-Brahma), the true source of all being, the
only and almighty ruler of the world. That
religious movement assumed its most important
development at the beginning of the twelfth
century, when Ramanuga founded the reformed
sect of the worshippers of Vishnu ; and again,
in the fourteenth century, when his fifth suc
cessor, Ramananda, imparted a still more liberal
character to that powerful sect. Not only did
he abolish many of the restrictions of caste,
many of the minute ceremonial observances in

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 55
eating, drinking, and bathing, but he replaced
the classical Sanskrit — which was unintelligible
to the large masses of the people — by the liv
ing vernaculars, in which he preached a purer
worship of God.
The most remarkable man of that time was a
weaver, the pupil of Ramananda, known ¦ Kabir.
by the name of Kabir. He indeed deserved
the name which the members of the reformed
sect claimed for themselves, Avadhuta, which
means one who has shaken off the dust of su
perstition. He broke entirely with the popular
mythology and the customs of the ceremonial
law, and addressed himself alike to Hindu and
Mohammedan. According to him, there is but
one God, the creator of the world, without
beginning and end, of inconceivable purity, and
irresistible strength. The pure man is the
image of God, and after death attains commu
nity with God. The commandments of Kabir
are few : Not to injure anything that has life,
for life is of God ; to speak the truth ; to keep
aloof from the world ; to obey the teacher.
His poetry is most beautiful, hardly surpassed
in any other language.
Still more important in the history of India
was the reform of Nanak, the founder Nanaki
of the Sikh religion. He, too, worked SSa5.rf
entirely in the spirit of Kabir. Both

56 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
labored to persuade the Hindus and Moham
medans that the truly essential parts of their
creeds were the same, that they ought to discard
the varieties of practical detail, and the cor
ruptions of their teachers, for the worship of
the One Only Supreme, whether he was termed
Allah or Vishnu.
The effect of these religious reforms has been
highly beneficial; it has cut into the very roots
of idolatry, and has spread throughout India an
intelligent and spiritual worship, which may at
any time develop into a higher national creed.
The same effect which Mohammedanism pro
duced on Hinduism is now being pro-
influence ° *
ity^S- duced in a much higher degree on the
religious mind of India by the mere
presence of Christianity. That silent influence
began to tell many years ago, even at a time
when no missionaries were- allowed within the
territory of the old East India Corn-
Ram Mohun •>
the^hma- Pany- ^s first representative was Ram
samaj. jy[0hun Roy, born just one hundred
years ago, in 1772, who died at Bristol in 1833,
the founder of the Brahma-Samaj. A man so
highly cultivated and so highly religious as he
was, could not but feel humiliated at the spec
tacle which the popular religion of his country
presented to his English friends. He drew
their attention to the fact that there was a

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 57
purer religion to be found in the old sacred
writings of his people, the Vedas. He went so
far as to claim for the Vedas a divine origin, and
to attempt the foundation of a reformed faith
on their authority. In this attempt he failed.
No doubt the Vedas and other works of the
ancient poets and prophets of India T . „.
x J- J- Inspiration
contain treasures of truth, which ought oftlieTeda8-
never to be forgotten, least of all by the sons
of India. The late good Bishop Cotton, in his
address to the students of a missionary institu
tion at Calcutta, advised them to use a certain
hymn of the Rig- Veda in their daily prayers.11
Nowhere do we find stronger arguments against
idolatry, nowhere has the unity of the Deity
been upheld more strenuously against the
errors of polytheism than by some of the
ancient sages of India. Even in the oldest of
their sacred books, the Rig- Veda, composed
three or four thousand years 'ago — where we
find hymns addressed to the different deities of
the sky, the air, the earth, the rivers — the
protest of the human heart against many gods,
breaks forth from time to time with no uncer
tain sound. One poet, after he has asked to
whom sacrifice is due, answers, " to Him who is
God above all gods." 12 Another poet, after
enumerating the names of many deities, affirms,
without hesitation, that " these are all but names

58 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
of Him who is One." And even when single
deities are invoked, it is not difficult to see that,
in the mind of the poet, each one of the names
is meant to express the highest conception of
deity of which the human mind was then capable.
The god of the sky is called Father and Mother
and Friend ; he is the Creator, the Upholder of
the Universe ; he rewards virtue and punishes
sin ; he listens to the prayers of those who love
him. But granting all this, we may well understand
why an attempt to claim for these books a
divine origin, and thus to make them an artifi
cial foundation for a new religion, failed. The
successor of Ram Mohun Roy, the present head
of the Brahma-Samaj, the wise and excellent
Debendranath Tagore, was for a time even
more decided in holding to the Vedas as the
Deben- sole foundation of the new faith. But
dranath -
Tagore. this could not last. As soon as the
true character of the Vedas,13 which but few
people in India can understand, became known,
partly through the efforts of native, partly of
European scholars, the Indian reformers re
linquished the claim of divine inspiration in
favor of their Vedas, and were satisfied with
a selection of passages from the works of the
ancient sages of India, to express and embody
the creed which the members of the Brahma-
Samaj hold in common.14

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 59
The work which these religious reformers
have been doing in India is excellent, and those
only who know what it is, in religious matters,
to break with the past, to forsake the established
custom of a nation, to oppose the rush of public
opinion, to brave adverse criticism, to submit
to social persecution, can form any idea of
what those men have suffered, in bearing wit
ness to the truth that was within them.
They could not reckon on any sympathy on
the part of Christian Missionaries ; nor schism in
j . -. -. . - . the Brahma-
aia their work attract much attention Sam5j-
in Europe till very lately, when a schism broke
out in the Brahma-Samaj between the old con
servative party and a new party, led by Keshub
Chunder Sen. The former, though wil- Keshub
t -i -n i t Chunder
img to surrender all that was clearly s™.
idolatrous in the ancient religion and customs
of India, wished to retain all that might safely
be retained : it did not wish to see the religion
of India denationalized. The other party, in
spired and led by Keshub Chunder Sen, went
further in their zeal for religious purity. All
that smacked of the old leaven was to be sur
rendered ; not only caste, but even that sacred
cord — the religious riband which makes and
marks the Brahman, which is to remind him at
every moment of his life, and whatever work he
may be engaged in, of his God, of his ancestors,

60 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
and of his children — even that was to be aban
doned; and instead of founding their creed
exclusively on the utterances of the ancient
sages of their own country, all that was best in
the sacred books of the whole world, was se
lected and formed into a new sacred Code.
The schism between these two parties is
deeply to be deplored; but it is a sign of life.
It augurs success rather than failure for the
future. It is the same schism which St. Paul
had to heal in the Church of Corinth, and he
healed it with the words, so often misunder
stood, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity
edifieth." In the eyes of our missionaries this religious
Relation reform in India has not found much
of Mission- „ _ nil"
aries to the tavor : nor need we wonder at this.
Brahma-Samaj. Their object is to transplant, if possible,
Christianity in its full integrity from England
to India, as we might wish to transplant a full-
grown tree. They do not deny the moral
worth, the noble aspirations, the self-sacrificing
zeal of these native reformers ; but they fear
that all this will but increase their dangerous
influence, and retard the progress of Christian
ity, by drawing some of the best minds of India,
that might have been gained over to our religion,
into a different current. They feel towards
Keshub Chunder Sen as Athanasius might have

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 61
felt towards Ulfilas, the Arian Bishop of the
Goths : and yet, what would have become of
Christianity in Europe but for those Gothic
races, but for those Arian heretics, who were
considered more dangerous than downright
pagans ?
If we think of the future of India, and of the
influence which that country has al- „ ,.
* Brahma-
ways exercised on the East, the move- £3^ t0
i t. t • n t . i a new creed.
ment ot religious reform which is now
going on, appears to my mind the most mo
mentous in this momentous century. If our mis
sionaries feel constrained to repudiate it as their
own work, history will be more just to them
than they themselves.15 And if not as the work
of Christian missionaries, it will be recognized
hereafter as the work of those missionary Chris
tians who have lived in India, as examples of a
true Christian life, who have approached the na
tives in a truly missionary spirit, in the spirit
of truth and in the spirit of love ; whose bright
presence has thawed the ice, and brought out
beneath it the old soil, ready to blossom into
new life. These Indian puritans are not against
us ; for all the highest purposes of life they
are with us, and we, I trust, with them. What
would the early Christians have said to men,
outside the pale of Christianity^ who spoke of
Christ and his doctrine as some of these Indian

62 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
reformers ? Would they have said to them,
"Unless you speak our language and think
our thoughts, unless you respect our Creed
and sign our Articles, we can have nothing in
common with you."
O that Christians, and particularly missiona-
„. . ries, would lay to heart the words of a
Missionaries 7 J "*
"quletoo missionary Bishop ! 16 "I have for
years thought," writes Bishop Patteson,
" that we seek in our Missions a great deal too
much to make English Christians. . . . Evi
dently the heathen man is not treated fairly,
if we encumber our message with unnecessary
requirements. The ancient Church had its
' selection of fundamentals.' . . . Any one can
see what mistakes we have made in India. . . .
Few men think themselves into the state of
the Eastern mind. . . . We seek to denational
ize these races, as far as I can see ; whereas
we ought surely to change as little as possible
— only what is clearly incompatible with the
simplest form of Christian teaching and prac
tice. I do not mean that we are to compro
mise truth .... but do we not overlay it a
good deal with human traditions ! "
Bisho Pat- If we had many such missionaries as
HtL Bishop Patteson and Bishop Cotton,
if Christianity were not only preached,
but lived in that spirit, it would then prove

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 63
itself what it is — the religion of humanity at
large, large enough itself to take in all shades
and diversities of character and race.
And more than that — if this true missionary
spirit, this spirit of truth and love, of forbear
ance, of trust, of toleration, of humility, were
once to kindle the hearts of all those chivalrous
ambassadors of Christ, the message of the Gos
pel which they have to deliver would then
become as great a blessing to the giver as to
the receiver. Even now, missionary work unites,
both at home and abroad, those who are widely
separated by the barriers of theological sects.17
It might do so far more still. When we
stand before a common enemy, we „. .
* ' Missionary
soon forget our own small feuds. But l^a'ot
why ? Often, I fear, from motives of unl0Z1'
prudence only and selfishness. Can we not,
then, if we stand in spirit before a common
friend — can we not, before the face of God,
forget our small feuds, for very shame ? If
missionaries admit to their fold converts who
can hardly understand the equivocal abstrac
tions of our Creeds and formulas, is it necessary
to exclude those who understand them but too
well to submit the wings of their free spirit to
such galling chains ? When we try to think of
the majesty of God, what are all those formulas
but the stammerings of children, which only a

64 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
loving father can interpret and understand !
The fundamentals of our religion are not in
these poor Creeds ; true Christianity lives, not
in our belief, but in our love — in our love of
God, and in our love of man, founded on our love of
God. That is the whole Law and the Prophets,
True ch™- that 1S the religion to be preached to
tianity- the whole world, that is the Gospel
which will conquer all other religions — even
Buddhism and Mohammedanism — which will
win the hearts of all men.
There can never be too much love, though
there may be too much faith — particularly
when it leads to the requirement of exactly
the same measure of faith in others. Let those
who wish for the true success of missionary
work learn to throw in of the abundance of
their faith ; let them learn to demand less from
others than from themselves. That is the best
offering, the most valuable contribution which
they can make to-day to the missionary cause.
Let missionaries preach the Gospel again as
it was preached when it began the conquest of
the Roman Empire and the Gothic nations ;
when it had to struggle with powers and princi
palities, with time-honored religions and tri
umphant philosophies, with pride of civilization
and savagery of life — and yet came out vie-

LECTURE ON MISSIONS. 65
torious. At that time conversion was not a
question to be settled by the acceptance or re
jection of certain formulas or articles ; a sim
ple prayer was often enough : " God be merci
ful to me a sinner."
There is one kind of faith that revels in
words, there is another that can hardly Two kinda
find utterance : the former is like riches of &lth'
that come to us by inheritance ; the latter is
like the daily bread, which each of us has to
win in the sweat of his brow. We cannot ex
pect the former from new converts ; we ought
not to expect it or to exact it, for fear that it
might lead to hypocrisy or superstition. The
mere believing of miracles, the mere repeat
ing of formulas, requires no effort in converts
brought up to believe in the Puranas of the
Brahmans or the Buddhist Gatakas. They find
it much easier to accept a legend than to love
God, to repeat a creed than, to forgive their
enemies. In this respect they are exactly like
ourselves. Let missionaries remember that the
Christian faith at home is no longer what it
was, and that it is impossible to have one creed
to preach abroad, another to preach at home.
Much that was formerly considered as essential
is now neglected ; much that was formerly neg
lected is now considered as essential. I think
of the laity more than of the clergy: but what

66 LECTURE ON MISSIONS.
would the clergy be without the laity ? There
are many of our best men, men of the greatest
power and influence in literature, science, art,
politics, aye, even in the Church itself, who are
no longer Christian in the old sense of the
word. Some imagine they have ceased to be
Christians altogether, because they feel that
they cannot believe as much as others profess
to believe. We cannot afford to lose these
men, nor shall we lose them if we learn to be
satisfied with what satisfied Christ and the
Apostles, with what satisfies many a hard-work
ing missionary. If Christianity is to retain its
hold on Europe and America, if it is to conquer
in the Holy War of the future, it must throw
off its heavy armor, the helmet of brass, and
the coat of mail, and face the world like David,
with his staff, his stones, and his sling. We
want less of creeds, but more of trust ; less of
ceremony, but more of work ; less of solemnity,
but more of genial honesty; less of doctrine,
but more of love. There is a faith, as small as
a grain of mustard-seed, but that grain alone
can move mountains, and more than that, it
can move hearts. Whatever the world may say
of us, of us of little faith, let us remember that
there was one who accepted the offering of the
poor widow. She threw in but two mites, but
that was all she had, even all her living.

NOTES.

1 Different systems of classification applied to the re
ligions of the world are discussed in my " Introduction to
the Science of Religion," pp. 122-143.
2 " Proselyto ne fidas usque ad vigesimam quartam gen-
erationem." Jalkut Euth, f. 1 63, d. ; Danz, in Meuschen,
"Nov. Test, ex Talm. illustr." p. 651.
3 " India, Progress and Condition," Blue Book presented
to Parliament, 1873, p. 99. " It is asserted (but the asser
tion must be taken with reserve) that it is a mistake to
suppose that the Hindu religion is not proselytizing. Any
number of outsiders, so long as they do not interfere with
established castes, can form a new caste, and call themselves
Hindus, and the Brahmans are always ready to receive all
who submit to and pay them."
' Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 5.
5 Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 12.
6 In some of the places mentioned by the " Chronicle "
as among the earliest stations of Buddhist missions, relics
have been discovered containing the names of the very mis
sionaries mentioned by the " Chronicle." See Koeppen,
" Die Religion des Buddha," p. 188.
7 " Islam is the verbal noun, and Moslim the participle of
the same root which also yields Salam, peace, and salim and
salym, whole, honest. Islam means, therefore, to satisfy or
pacify by forbearance ; it also means simply subjection."
Sprenger, "Mohammad," i. p. 69; iii. 486.
8 Lassen, " Indische Alterthumskunde," vol. iv. p. 635.

68 NOTES.
9 " Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. ; " Essays
on the Science of Religion," pp. 161, 216.
10 Lassen, " Indische Alterthumskunde," vol. iv. p. 606.
Wilson, "Asiatic Researches," xvi. p. 21.
u See " Brahmic Questions of the Day," 1869, p. 16.
12 " History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," by M. M.
(2d ed.), p. 569.
13 " The Adi Brahma-Samaj, Its Views and Principles,"
Calcutta, 1870, p. 10.
k a j± Brief History of the Calcutta Brahma-Samaj,
1868," p. 15.
15 The "Indian Mirror" (Sept. 10, 1869) constantly
treats of missionary efforts of various kinds in a spirit
which is not only friendly, but even desirous of reciprocal
sympathy ; and hopeful that whatever differences may exist
between them (the missionaries) and the Brahmos, the two
parties will heartily combine as brethren to exterminate
idolatry, and promote true morality in India.
Many of our ministers and leading men, says the " Indian
Mirror," are recruited from missionary schools, which, by
affording religious education, prove more favorable to the
growth and spread of Brahmoism than Government schools
with Comte and Secularism (" Indian Theism," by S. D.
Collet, 1870, p. 22).
16 " Life of John Coleridge Patteson," by C. M. Yonge,
ii. p. 167.
17 The large body of European and American mission
aries settled in India bring their various moral influences
to bear upon the country with the greater force, because
they act together with a compactness which is but little un
derstood. Though belonging to various denominations of
Christians, yet from the nature of their work, their isolated
position, and their long experience, they have been led to
think rather of the numerous questions on which they agree,
than of those on which they differ, and they cooperate

NOTES. 69
heartily together. Localities are divided among them by
friendly arrangements, and, with a few exceptions, it is a
fixed rule among them that they will not interfere with each
other's converts and each other's spheres of duty. School
books, translations of the Scriptures and religious works,
prepared by various missions, are used in common ; and
help and improvements secured by one mission are freely
placed at the command of all. The large body of mission
aries resident in each of the presidency towns form mission
ary conferences, hold periodic meetings, and act together on
public matters. They have frequently addressed the Indian
Government on important social questions involving the
welfare of the native community, and have suggested val
uable improvements in existing laws. During the past
twenty years, on five occasions, general conferences have
been held for mutual consultation respecting their mission
ary work ; and in January last, at the latest of these gath
erings, at Allahabad, 121 missionaries met together, belong
ing to twenty different societies, and including several men
of long experience who have been twenty years in India
("India, Progress and Condition," 1873, p. 124).

The Schism in the Brahma-Samaj.1
The present position of the two parties in the Brahma-
Samaj is well described by Rajnarain Bose (the " Adi
Brahmo Samaj," Calcutta, 1873, p. 11). " The particular
opinions above referred to can be divided into two compre-,
hensive classes — conservative and progressive. The con-
1 Brahma-Samaj, the Church of Brahma, is the general title. When
the schism took place, the original Samaj was called Adi Brahma-Ssjmaj,
i. e. the First Church of Brahma, while the progressive party under Keshub
Chunder Sen was distinguished by the name of the Brahma-Samaj of India.
The vowels u and o are often the same in Bengali, and are sometimes used
for a.

70 NOTES.
servative Brahmos are those who are unwilling to push re
ligious and social reformation to any great extreme. They
are of opinion that reformation should be gradual, the law
of gradual progress being universally prevalent in nature.
They also say that the principle of Brahmic harmony re
quires a harmonious discharge of all our duties, and that,
as it is a duty to take a part in reformation, so there are
other duties to perform, namely, those towards parents and
society, and that we should harmonize all these duties as
much as we can. However unsatisfactory such arguments
may appear to a progressive Brahmo, they are such as
could not be slighted at first sight. They are certainly such
as to make the conservative Brahmo think sincerely that he
is justified in not pushing religious and social reformation
to any great extreme. The progressive Brahmo cannot
therefore call him a hypocrite. A union of both the
conservative and the progressive elements in the Brahmo
church is necessary for its stability. The conservative ele
ment will prevent the progressive from spoiling the cause
of reformation by taking premature and abortive measures
for advancing that cause ; the progressive element will pre
vent the conservative from proving a stolid obstruction to
it. The conservative element will serve as a link between
the progressive element and the orthodox community, and
prevent the progressive Brahmo from being completely es
tranged from that community, as the native Christians are ;
while the progressive element will prevent the conservative
from remaining inert and being absorbed by the orthodox
community. The common interests of Brahmo Dharma
should lead both classes to respect, and be on amicable
terms with, each other. It is true the progressive of the
present half century will prove the conservative of the next ;
but there could never come a time when the two classes
would cease to exist in the bosom of the church. She
should, like a wise mother, make them live in peace with
each other, and work harmoniously together for her benefit.

NOTES. 71
" As idolatry is intimately interwoven with our social
fabric, conservative Brahmos, though discarding it in other
respects, find it very difiicult to do so on the occasion of
such very important domestic ceremonies as marriage,
shradh (ancestral sacrifices), and upanayana (spiritual ap
prenticing) ; but they should consider that Brahmoism is
not so imperative on any other point as on the renunciation
of idolatry. It can allow conservatism in other respects,
but not on the point of idolatry. It can consider a man a
Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idol
atry ; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo.
The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe
the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it,
if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual
laid down in the Anushthana Paddhati. Liberty should be
given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative
Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the por
tions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive
Brahmo requires a conservative one to reject those portions
which the former considers to be idolatrous, but the latter
does not, he denies liberty of conscience to a fellow-
Brahmo. " The Adi Brahmo-Samaj is the national Hindu Theistic
Church, whose principles of church reformation we have
been describing above. Its demeanor towards the old re
ligion of the country is friendly, but corrective and reform
ative. It is this circumstance which preeminently distin
guishes it from the Brahmo-Samaj of India, whose attitude
to that religion is antagonistic and offensive. The mission
of the Adi Samaj is to fulfill the old religion, and not to
destroy it. The attitude of the Adi Samaj to the old re
ligion is friendly, but it is not at the same time opposed to
progress. It is a mistake to call it a conservative church.
It is rather a conservative progressive church, or, more cor
rectly, simply a church or religious body, leaving matters of

72 NOTES.
social reformation to the judgments of individual members
or bodies of such members. It contains both progressive
and conservative members. As the ultra-progressive Brah
mos, who wanted to eliminate the conservative element from
it, were obliged to secede from it, so if a high conservative
party arise in its bosom which would attempt to do violence
to the progressive element and convert the church into a
partly conservative one, that party also would be obliged to
secede from it. Only men who can be tolerant of each oth
er's opinions, and who can respect each other's earnest con
victions, progressive and conservative, can remain its mem
bers." The strong national feeling of the Indian reformers finds
expression in the following passage from " Brahmic Ques
tions," p. 9 : —
" A Samaj is accessible to all. The minds of the major
ity of our countrymen are not deeply saturated with Chris
tian sentiments. What would they think of a Brahmo
minister who would quote on the Vedi (altar) sayings from
the Bible ? Would they not from that time conceive an in
tolerable hatred towards Brahmoism and everything Brah
mo ? If quoting a sentence from the Bible or Koran offend
our countrymen, we shall not do so. Truth is as catholic
when taken from the Sastras as from the Koran or the
Bible. True liberality consists, not in quoting texts from
the religious Scriptures of other nations, but in bringing
up, as we advance, the rear who are groveling in ignorance
and superstition. We certainly do not act against the dic
tates of conscience, if we quote texts from the Hindu Sas
tras only, and not from all the religious Scriptures of all the
countries on the face of the globe. Moreover, there is not
a single saying in the Scriptures of other nations, which has
not its counterpart in the Sastras."
And again in " The Adi Brahma Samaj, Its Views and
Principles," p. 1 : —

NOTES. 73
" The members of the Adi Samaj, aiming to diffuse the
truths of Theism among their own nation, the Hindus, have
naturally adopted a Hindu mode of propagation, just as an
Arab Theist would adopt an Arabian mode of propagation,
and a Chinese Theist a Chinese one. Such differences in
the aspect of Theism in different countries must naturally
arise from the usual course of things, but they are adven
titious, not essential, national, not sectarian. Although
Brahmoism is universal religion, it is impossible to commu
nicate a universal form to it. It must wear a particular
form in a particular country. A so-called universal form
would make it appear grotesque and ridiculous to the nation
or religious denomination among whom it is intended to be
propagated, and would not command their veneration. In
conformity with such views, the Adi Samaj has adopted a
Hindu form to propagate Theism among Hindus. It has
therefore retained many innocent Hindu usages and cus
toms, and has adopted a form of divine service containing
passages extracted from the Hindu Sastras only, a book of
Theistic texts containing selections from those sacred books
only, and a ritual containing as much of the ancient form
as could be kept consistently with the dictates of con-

Extracts from Keshub Chunder Sen's Lecture on Christ and
Christianity, 1870.
" Why have I cherished respect and reverence for Christ ?
.... Why is it that, though I do not take the name of
" Christian," I still persevere in offering my hearty thanks
givings to Jesus Christ ? There must be something in the
life and death of Christ, — there must be something in his
great gospel which tends to bring comfort and light and
strength to a heart heavy-laden with iniquity and wickedness-
.... I studied Christ ethically, nay, spiritually, — and I

74 NOTES.
studied the Bible also in the same spirit, and I must ac
knowledge candidly and sincerely that I owe a great deal
to Christ and to the gospel of Christ. . . .
"My first inquiry was, What is the creed taught in the
Bible? . . . Must I go through all the dogmas and doc
trines which constitute Christianity in the eye of the various
sects, or is there something simple which I can at once
grasp and turn to account ?
" I found Christ spoke one language and Christianity an
other. I went to him prepared to hear what he had to say,
and was immensely gratified when he told me : ' Love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with
all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neigh
bor as thyself ; ' and then he added, ' This is the whole law
and the prophets,' in other words, the whole philosophy,
theology, and ethics of the law and the prophets are con
centrated in these two great doctrines of love to God and
love to man ; and then elsewhere he said, ' This do and ye
shall inherit everlasting life.' .... If we love God and
love man we become Christ-like, and so attain everlasting
life. " Christ never demanded from me worship or adoration
that is due to God, the Creator of the Universe  He
places himself before me as the spirit I must imbibe in or
der to approach the Divine Father, as the great Teacher
and guide who will lead me to God.
" There are some persons who believe that if we pass
through the ceremony of baptism and sacrament, we shall
be accepted by God, but if you accept baptism as an out
ward rite, you cannot thereby render your life acceptable to
God, for- Christ wants something internal, a complete con
version of the heart, a giving up the yoke of mammon and
accepting the yoke of religion, and truth, and God. He
wants us to baptize our hearts not with cold water, but with
the fire of religious and spiritual enthusiasm ; he calls upon

NOTES. 75
us not to go through any outward rite, but to make baptism
a ceremony of the heart, a spiritual enkindling of all our
energies, of all our loftiest and most heavenly aspirations
and activities. That is true baptism. So with regard to
the doctrine of the Sacrament. There are many who eat
the bread and drink the wine at the Sacramental table, and
go through the ceremony in the most pious and fervent
spirit, but, after all, what does the real Sacrament mean ?
If men simply adopt it as a tribute of respect and honor to
Christ, shall he be satisfied ? Shall they themselves be sat
isfied ? Can we look upon them as Christians simply be
cause they have gone through this rite regularly for twenty
or fifty years of their lives ? I think not. Christ demands
of us absolute sanctification and purification of the heart.
In this matter, also, I see Christ on one side, and Christian
sects on the other.
" What is that bread which Christ asked his disciples to
eat ? what that wine which he asked them to taste ? Any
man who has simple intelligence in him, would at once
come to the conclusion that all this was metaphorical, and
highly and eminently spiritual. Now, are you prepared to
accept Christ simply as an outward Christ, an outward
teacher, an external atonement and propitiation, or will you
prove true to Christ by accepting his solemn injunctions in
their spiritual importance and weight ? He distinctly says,
every follower of his must eat his flesh and drink his blood.
If we eat, bread is converted into strength and health, and
becomes the means of prolonging our life ; so, spiritually,
if we take truth into our heart, if we put Christ into the
soul, we assimilate the spirit of Christ to our spiritual being,
and then we find Christ incorporated into our existence and
converted into spiritual strength, and health, and joy, and
blessedness. Christ wants something that will amount to
self-sacrifice, a casting away of the old man and a new
growth in the heart. I thus draw a line of demarkation

76 NOTES.
between the visible and outward Christ and the invisible
and inward Christ, between bodily Christ and spiritual
Christ, between the Christ of images and pictures, and the
Christ that grows in the heart, between dead Christ and
living Christ, between Christ that lived and that was, and
Christ that does live and that is. . . .
" To be a Christian then is to be Christ-like. Chris
tianity means becoming like Christ, not acceptance
Christ as a proposition or as an outward representation, but
spiritual conformity with the life and character of Christ.
And what is Christ? By Christ I understand one who
said, ' Thy will be done ; ' and when I talk of Christ, I
talk of that spirit of loyalty to God, that spirit of absolute
determinedness and preparedness to say at all times and in
all circumstances, ' Thy will be done, not mine.' . . .
" This prayer about forgiving an enemy and loving an
enemy, this transcendental doctrine of love of man, is really
sweet to me, and when I think of that blessed Man of God,
crucified on the cross, and uttering those blessed words,
' Father, forgive them, they know not what they do ; ' oh !
I feel that I must love that being, I feel that there is some
thing within me which is touched by these sweet and heav
enly utterances, I feel that I must love Christ, let Christians
say what they like against me ; that Christ I must love, for
he preached love for an enemy. . . .
" When every individual man becomes Christian in spirit,
— repudiate the name, if you like, — when every individual
man becomes as prayerful as Christ was, as loving and for
giving towards enemies as Christ was, as self-sacrificing as
Christ was, then these little units, these little individual
ities, will coalesce and combine together by the natural af
finity of their hearts ; and these new creatures, reformed,
regenerated, in the child-like and Christ-like spirit of devo
tion and faith, will feel drawn towards each other, and they
shall constitute a real Christian church, a real Christian na-

NOTES. 77
tion. Allow me, friends, to say, England is not yet a Chris
tian nation."

Extracts from a Catechism issued by a member of the Adi
Brahmo-Samaj.
Q. Who is the deity of the Brahmos ?
A. The One True God, one only without a second, whom
all Hindu Sastras proclaim.
Q. What is the divine worship of the Brahmos ?
A. Loving God, and doing the works He loveth.
Q. What is the temple of the Brahmos ?
A. The pure heart.
Q. What are the ceremonial observances of the Brahmos ?
A. Good works.
Q. What is the sacrifice of the Brahmos ?
A. Renunciation of selfishness.
Q. What are the austerities of the Brahmos ?
A. Not committing sin. The Mahabharata says, He who
does not commit sin in mind, speech, action, or understand
ing, performs austerities ; not he who drieth up his body.
Q. What is the place of pilgrimage of the Brahmos ?
A. The company of the good.
Q. What is the Veda of the Brahmos ?
A. Divine knowledge. It is superior to all Vedas. The
Veda itself says : The inferior knowledge is the Rig Veda,
the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, the Atharva Veda, etc. ;
the superior knowledge is that which treats of God.
Q. What is the most sacred formula of the Brahmos ?
A. Be good and do good.
Q. Who is the true Brahman ?
A. He who knows Brahma. The Brihadaranyaka-TJpani-
shad says : He who departs from this world knowing God,
is a Brahman. (See " Brahmic Questions of the Day,''
1869).

BuDfBURGH REVIEW. -"The BEST History of the Roman Republic."
LONDON TIMES. -"BY FAR THE BEST Historv of the Decline and l.iB
of the Roman Commonwealth."

THE

jJSiatott) of Home,
FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE.
By Dr. THEODOE MOMMSEE
Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regiui
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner in
the University of St. Andrews. With an Introduftion by Dr. Leonhahd Schmitz, aw!
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition.
REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION
Four Volumes crown 8vo. Priee per volume, $2.00.

Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his researches
into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and Italy, as
the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these departments of his
torical investigation. To a wonderfully exafl and exhaustive knowledge of
these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited,
and exceedingly grapliic style and keen analytical powers, which give this
history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no other
record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. " Dr.
Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introdu&ion, " though
the producTion of a man of most profound and extensive learning and
knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professional
scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take an interest in the his
tory of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek information that may
guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history."
CRITICAL NOTICES.
" A. work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full
of grains and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times.
" Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History has appeared that combines so
much to attract, instruct, and charm the reader. Its style— a rare quality in a German au
thor—is vigorous, spirited, and animated. Professor Mommsen's work can stand a com.
parison with the noblest productions of modem history."— Dr. Schmitz.
"This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole- tha
Ulthor's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, hii
jraphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interM.1
i/hich he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an eoual in his own sphere. "
-Edinburgh Xevieio.
- A book of deepest interest"— Dran Trench.

ANOTHER GREAT HISTORICAL WORK.

©|f Ijjisforg of (JpFFtF,
By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS.
Translated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, M.A., Fellow of St. Peter's
College, Cambridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester.
To be completed in four or five vols., crown 8vo, at $2. SO per volume.
Printed upon Tinted Paper, Uniform with Mommsen's History of Rome, and the
Library Edition of Froude's History of England.
VOLS. I., II., AND III., NOW READY.

Curtius* History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's History of
Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of the great masterpieces of
historical literature. Avoiding the minute details which overburden other similar works,
it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the important events in the history of
this kingdom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's civilization.
The narrative of Prof. Curtius' work is flowing and animated, and the generalizations,
although bold, are philosophical and sound.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

" Professor Curtius' eminent scholarship is a sufficent guarantee for the trustworthiness of
his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrating
them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Professor Curtius everywhere main
tains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on
the side of justice, humanity, and progress." — London Athenceum.
" We can not express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book better than by saying that it may
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — Lo?tdon Spectator.
"As ah introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the
age." — N. V. Daily Tribune.
"The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instructive
branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts for
their education. This translation ought to become a regular part ol the accepted course
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political
life of our country." — N. Y. Evening Post.
This book sent post-paid, upon receipt of the price, by the Publishers,
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.,
654 Broadway, New You/..'