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That point may seem rather one for discussion between Saddnanda and yourself; or at least is premature for me here to dwell upon; but I cannot forbear saying, that your subtle metaphysics have the air of subsequent explanations, which pious learning appears to have devised in order to meet the less spiritual, but more literal interpretation, which the Sankhyasts and other philosophers gave to the Vedic hymns. " Then we have seen, that all your elaborate result does not prevent either idolatry, or other degrading forms of worship. May I not add, that it seems almost a suicidal admission, for you to acknowledge that you despair of improving the vast SOCIAL SHORTCOMINGS. 229 masses of your countiymen ? For, just as you said, that the Divine soul is in the Brahman and the Ch&nddla, so have we need of a religion which shall bring near to God not only the priest, the king, and the noble, but which shall raise the humble, enlighten the ignorant, and bind all mankind into one body by intersecting veins of sympathy and intelligence under the headship of a heavenly Father. Believe me, no religion can be truly of God, which fears to speak good news to the poor, or which has not a home for the outcast, and a possibility of rising by renovation of the heart and spirit for even the most abject of mankind. In that sense, but in no other, I accept your doctrine of one soul-tree, whose branches embrace the world. " Least of all should I think that a true religion would leave women comparatively little taught, and liable from ignorance to become idle toys, or the mere victims of sensuality. If that Divine soul which you speak of, either in your sense or in any sense, animates alike with men the gentler partners of their being, the religion which is to train them in the sight of God, must begin early both by purifying the affections and also by awakening and enlarging the intelligence. Those early marriages which almost forerun the instincts of nature, and at least obstruct education, would be somewhat checked. It would become the duty of intelligent women to aid in making the home of man a natural temple, from which the imbought incense of piety and affection would ascend, and in which the Eternal Spirit Himself would not disdain by His instinctive teaching to dwell and be felt. Then, among other improve- ments, the conversation of common people would not be, (as I have heard some of your coimtrymcn* complain, for this is their saying,) such as to repel women by indecency, or else to vitiate their simple modesty. It is not by keeping the two sexes apart, but by instructing both and purifying both in • 'Strictures on Hindfi Polytheism,' in Bengalee, hy Bruja Mohun. — Essays on the Hind&s, London, 1823. 230 SINS OF INDIA. the knowledge and fear of tlie true GU)d, tliat all social virtues are to be best preserved. "But such a knowledge would indeed change many other things in India for the better. It would above all teach and induce men to speak the truth candidly one with another, both as believers in a Judge who calls to account for the secrets of the heart, and as members of one great spiritual brotherhood, animated therefore by a common life, and e^ch interested in preserving the just rights of his neighbour. Nor do I suppose that you would then see men irrationally praying against each other for success when they go to law, and perhaps attempting to ensure that success by false-swearing, instead of rather en- deavouring that each should be in the right, and praying for their cause to be determined by justice. If they had even an intelligent conception of Gt)d, they would not pray to a blind idol ; and if they had a moral feeling at heart, that the true Grod must decide things in truth and righteousness, they would never try to bribe Him by imholy prayers to an unjust de- cision. ** I say nothing here of caste as a mere social distinction ; but so far as it implies spiritual pride, it would tend to fade, in proportion as men felt themselves brothers from their common bearing to one Divine Saviour. In the same manner also, I conceive, sectarianism and all its marks, with vertical strokes or horizontal strokes, and whatever rivalries may thus be cherished among men, would die out before the light. Much more, all barbarous practices, like the bloody sacrifices of the Khonds, the child-murder of other tribes, and may I not add, any inclination to restore the burning of widows, or encouragement for fanatics to throw themselves imder the car of Crishna, bls Jaganndtha, would become as repulsive to people in this country, as they now appear to more educated nations. All the abominations sanctioned by the Tantras, the left-handed Sdctas, and the festival of the Holt, which I remember seeing celebrated last February, with obscene verses and disgusting attitudes in the open streets^ NEED OF A TRUEB KELIGION. 231 as well as the singing-girls, which are described as an unholy appendage to some temples, would all go the same road. You, my venerable friend, would rejoice at heart, I feel confident, to see all such things utterly vanish. Yet you might still practise the old Hindu virtues of gentleness and patience ; you might respect life to whatever extent your conscience prompted you, though I confess I don't see why the life of a cow is more sacred than that of any other animal equally useful. You might also train up families in virtue, and still build water-tanks, and plant trees for the benefit of travellers, since these things are good and profitable for men ; but you would find (I think) any true re- ligion quite in harmony with what you have distinctly laid down, that mere human deeds* cannot in themselves merit, as of right, either the forgiveness of sins, or everlasting life. I could wish you would persuade all your countrymen to think even on that last point, as you do yourself. " But, in any case, we can entertain no sanguine hope of improving the people of India, unless we are able by the bless- ing of the true God to become the means of imparting to them that knowledge of Himself, which would alone go far to lift up the lowly. Your system seems in every possible sense stricken with the plague of despair; and as it has on it the marks of hopelessness, so I have shewn it to be contradictory to reason ; and I doubt if even it is in harmony with the very scriptures from which you profess to extract it. We seem then still to have our faith to seek. For I fully acknowledge, it would be no use teaching another system as more hopeful, unless we had more grounds of either reason or experience for believing it to be true. Yet, again, some would say, true fitness of a belief for man's mental system might alone prove it to be true ; but I am here rather arguing the converse, that what is truest is fittest ; ♦ The paramount efficacy of faith is a doctrine of the Bhagavad-git^ and of modem hymns : but not ancient in India, and thought to be borrowed from the Penrian SufiH.— Colebrooke, Vol. i. p. 376 ; Wilson's Ojford Led. pp. 30, 31. But it may be a native, though late, development. 232 WHETHER TRUER TO INTUITION, OR BY PROOF. though probably the two will at last correspond. I allow in- deed for the evidence of the mind at least as much as for that of the senses, and probably more. Hence it often occurs to me in speaking, that instead of labouring to prove a proposition, as if my side were the more doubtful of the two, I ought rather to say in virtue of that which we feel and necessarily believe, O come, let us fall down and kneel; and worship the Lord our Maker." OBSTACLES TO THE DISCUSSION. 233 CHAPTER VII. Outline of Indian Chronology, "The Hindd passes as it were a kind of spiritual existence in ages long since gone by." — Mecren, As. Res. "Bei den Hindti hat die Religion alio Geschichte zerstort.'* — Benfey, in Lassen. When Blancombe had got so far, there was a kind of half- complimentary assent from the greater part of the company. It seemed also to be agreed that farther inquiry should be made about religious books, with a view of either seeing whether they had valid claims on our acceptance, or how far they warranted religions which professed to be extracted from them. "But here," said Vidydch^rya, "I can go no farther. You are all going to discuss the claims of different religions, and I am already fixed. Not that 1 should not be glad to profit by your superior wisdom, and ready to learn anything from you.