English
Either Hinduism Tvas true or false ; but it has been proved to be false in at least its claims to Divine authority, and very imperfect in its representations, or rather its conjectures, of truth. Whereas Christianity has been proved of Divine origin, by the preparation for it, and by the signs of prophecy and miracle with which it was accompanied. and by the resurrection of our blessed Lord from the grave, and by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the whole history of the FINAL ISSUE. 557 Church, with the witness of men's better consciences even to this day. As this faith has alone Divine authority, so it is such a Gospel, or message of goodwill to man, that* we should not dispute, so much as thankfully embrace it. Nor is it easy to see, what can keep men from embracing the infinite love of God, and being saved by it, unless they cherish some sin, which shrinks from His holiness/' "I should be glad of time, and will consider the matter farther," here said the A'chdiya. " We both hope, my friend," said one of the others, "that you will consider it seriously, and pray the Divine Enlightener to lead you aright. But now," he continued, " it is time for ourselves to be going to our prayers." Accordingly, after some courteous salutations, the two strang- ers departed. Following them shortly afterwards, I came to a lofty building, with a table, and a plain Cross upon it, at the far end, and in the middle between the tall pillars were the two strangers, and a multitude of mixed people, with youths in white robes and with instruments of music, singing some such hymn as this : We praise thee, O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting. To thee all Angels cry aloud : the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Chembin, and Seraphin : continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth ; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy Glory. The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee. The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee. The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge thee; The Father : of an infinite Majesty ; Thine honourable, true : and only Son ;^ Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter. Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ 558 KND OF THE DIALOGUE. Thou art the eyerlasting Son : of the Father. When thou tookest \i\>ou thee to deliyer man : thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb. When thou hadst overcome the sliarjiness of death : thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the Glory of the Father. We believe that thou shalt come : to be our Judge. We therefore pray thee, help thy servants : whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood. Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : iu glory ever- lasting. O Lord, save thy people : and bless thine heritage. Govern them : and lift them up for ever. Day by day : we magnify thee ; And we worship thy Name : ever world without end. Vouchsafe, O Lord : to keep us this day without sin. O Lord, have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us. O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us : as our trust is in thee. O Lord, in thee have I trusted : let me never be confounded. Taking up some of the books about, I read prayers like these : O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live ; Have mercy upon all them that are in any error of thought or life, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word ; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shep- herd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who Uveth and reigneth w^ith thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amef^ O God, who art the author of :peao^ and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal lifia, whose service is perfect freedom ; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our ene- mies; that we, surely trusting in thydafgnbej may not fear the pover of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Chtifit our L^id Amen, END OF THE DIALOGUE. 559 What became of the speakers in the Dialogue I never hap- pened to hear, for I soon changed my abode. But I have myself married a wife, who was brought up in the schools of the mis- sionaries. She is more decidedly a Christian than I yet am able to be myself, and she sometimes reads to me the words of Christ, which seem very wholesome. We intend our children, if possi- ble, to have the benefit of the same schooling as their mother had ; and I often doubt, (perhaps you can advise me,) whether I ought not to take the more decided step of receiving your sacraments, and owning myself as a follower of Christ, the Son of God, and Saviour of Mankind. O JETEBNA VEETTAS, ET VERA CARITAS, ET CARA .STERNITAS, TU E8 DEU8 MEUa ST AUQUSTINB. APPENDIX. The following, which is extracted, with Mr Solly's penmssion, out of his interesting work on The Will, Divine cmd Hwrnariy may help some to apprehSid the Vedinta doctrine, and might, with the change of a few expressions, be translated into its language. '^ The difficulty of conceiving the relation of the human will as free, to the will of God as absolute, arises in the following altemative. Either the human will conforms absolutely and entirely with the Divine, in which case its freedom can only be reserved by the supposi- tion that it forms an actual part of the Divine will, and that the whole life of a man is but an emanation from God, — only one mode of Grod*s action ; or else the human will is not in absolute conformity with the Divine, but has an individual existence of its own ; and in this case it appears as a limitation to the power of the Omnipotent. The first of these hypotheses appears to me untenable for several reasons. Besides making God the inmiediate author of evil, it runs entirely coimter to those subjective feelings, to find an object for which is the sole purport of faith*s assuming a God at alL For by this absorption of man in the Godhead, the relation of the human to the Divine will is annihilated in their identity. But it is the con- sciousness of this relation which, in the dim region of subjective feeling, constitutes the moral sentiment, and which, when objectivised by the sum total of the faculties in their joint operation under the name of faith, evolves the conception of God, and superadds to the feeling of duty, that of religious reverence. The difficulty of the second hypothesis is also great, but it is a difficulty of another character. It does not arise from its irreconcila- bility with the conception of the Grod of our fidth, but frx)m our inability to form any adequate conception of an act of creation. M. P. 36 562 APPENDIX. Now emanation, or a purely positive pouring forth of the Divine activity, is a comparatively simple idea ; at any rate it does not ap- pear to involve any logical contradiction. But in the conception of creation, we have that of a created object, which, as such, must have a species of independence of its creator, and thus offer a resistance to the very will fix)m which it has proceeded. For if it offer no such resistance, if, on the contrary, it sway here and there with the thought of its creator, it ceases to be anything in itself, and becomes a mere manifestation of the creating power without any independent result ; in short an emanation from the same. But then, on the other hand, this very power of resistance in which the creation as created object consists, is itself the product of the creating wUL Hence an act of creation, as opposed to mere emanation, involves the conception of a double will in the creator, namely, — ^the positive, or the greater will which produces, and the lesser, which may be called the negative will from its being limited by the object thus produced. This double will involves for us the principal difficulty in the conception of an act of creation. In the conception of mere nuiking^ we have the acting will and the resisting matter.