THE BATTLE OF
ARMAGEDDON
[D_page 182]
The Great Parliament of Religions
The Chicago Herald, commenting favorably upon
the proceedings of the Parliament (italics are ours), said:
“Never since the confusion at Babel have so
many religions, so many creeds, stood side by side, hand in hand, and
almost heart to heart, as in that great amphitheater last night. Never
since written history began has varied mankind been so bound about with
Love’s golden chain. The nations of the earth, the creeds of
Christendom, Buddhist and Baptist, Mohammedan and Methodist, Catholic
and Confucian, Brahmin and Unitarian, Shinto and Episcopalian,
Presbyterian and Pantheist, Monotheist and Polytheist, representing all
shades of thought and conditions of men, have at last met together in
the common bonds of sympathy, humanity and respect.”
How significant is the fact that the mind of even this
enthusiastic approver of the great Parliament should be carried away
back to the memorable confusion of tongues at Babel! Was it not,
indeed, that instinctively he recognized in the Parliament a remarkable
antitype?
The Rev. Barrows, above quoted, spoke enthusiastically of
the friendly relations manifested among Protestant ministers, Catholic
priests, Jewish rabbis and, in fact, the leaders of all religions
extant, by their correspondence in reference to the great Chicago
Parliament. He said:
“The old idea,
that the religion to which I belong is the only true one, is out of
date. There is something to be
[D_page 183]
learned
from all religions, and no man is worthy of the religion he represents
unless he is willing to grasp any man by the hand as his brother. Some
one has said that the time is now ripe for the best religion to
come to the front. The time for a man to put on any airs of superiority
about his particular religion is past. Here will meet the wise
man, the scholar and the prince of the East in friendly relation with
the archbishop, the rabbi, the missionary, the preacher and the priest.
They will sit together in congress for the first time. This, it is
hoped, will help to break down the barriers of creed.”
Rev. T. Chalmers, of the Disciples church, said:
“This first Parliament of Religions seems to be the
harbinger of a still larger fraternity—a fraternity that will combine
into one world-religion what is best, not in one alone,
but in all of the great historic faiths. It may be that, under the
guidance of this larger hope, we shall need to revise our phraseology
and speak more of Religious unity, than of Christian
unity. I rejoice that all the great cults are to be brought
into touch with each other, and that Jesus will take his place in the
companionship of Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster.”
The New York Sun, in an editorial on this
subject, said:
“We cannot make out exactly what the Parliament proposes
to accomplish...It is possible, however, that the Chicago scheme is to
get up some sort of a new and compound religion, which
shall include and satisfy every variety of religious and irreligious
opinion. It is a big job to get up a new and eclectic
religion satisfactory all around; but Chicago is confident.”
It would indeed be strange if the spirit of Christ and the
spirit of the world would suddenly prove to be in harmony, that those
filled with the opposite spirits should see eye to eye. But such is not
the case. It is still true that the spirit of the world is enmity to
God (James 4:4); that its theories and philosophies are vain and
foolish; and that the one divine revelation contained in the inspired
Scriptures of the apostles and prophets is the only divinely inspired
truth.
[D_page 184]
One of the stated objects of the Parliament, according to
its president, Mr. Bonney, was to bring together the world’s religions
in an assembly “in which their common aims and common grounds of union
may be set forth, and the marvelous religious progress of the nineteenth
century be reviewed.”
The real and only object of that review
evidently was to answer the inquiring spirit of these times—of this
judgment hour—to make as good a showing as possible of the church’s
progress, and to inspire the hope that, after all the seeming failure of
Christianity, the church is just on the eve of a mighty victory; that
soon, very soon, her claimed mission will be accomplished in the world’s
conversion. Now mark how she proposes to do it, and observe that it is
to be done, not by the spirit of truth and righteousness, but by the
spirit of compromise, of hypocrisy and deceit. The stated object of the
Parliament was fraternization and religious union; and anxiety to secure
it on any terms was prominently manifest. They were even willing, as
above stated, to revise their phraseology to accommodate the heathen
religionists, and call it religious unity, dropping the obnoxious name
Christian, and quite contented to have Jesus step down from his
superiority and take his place humbly by the side of the heathen sages,
Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster. The spirit of doubt and perplexity,
and of compromise and general faithlessness, on the part of Protestant
Christians, and the spirit of boastfulness and of counsel and authority
on the part of Roman Catholics and all other religionists, were the most
prominent features of the great Parliament. Its first session was opened
with the prayer of a Roman Catholic—Cardinal Gibbons—and its last
session was closed with the benediction of a Roman Catholic—Bishop
Keane. And during the last session a Shinto priest of Japan invoked
[D_page 185]
upon the
motley assembly the blessing of eight million deities.
Rev. Barrows had for two years previous been in
correspondence with the representative heathen of other lands, sending
the Macedonian cry around the world to all its heathen priests and
apostles, to “Come over and help us!” That the call should thus issue
representatively from the Presbyterian church, which for several years
past had been undergoing a fiery ordeal of judgment, was also a fact
significant of the confusion and unrest which prevail in that
denomination, and in all Christendom. And all Christendom was ready for
the great convocation.
For seventeen days representative Christians of all
denominations, sat together in counsel with the representatives of all
the various heathen religions, who were repeatedly referred to in a
complimentary way by the Christian orators as “wise men from the
east”—borrowing the expression from the Scriptures, where it was
applied to a very different class—to a few devout believers in the God
of Israel and in the prophets of Israel who foretold the advent of
Jehovah’s Anointed, and who were patiently waiting and watching for his
coming, and giving no heed to the seducing spirits of worldly wisdom
which knew not God. To such truly wise ones, humble though they were,
God revealed his blessed message of peace and hope.
The theme announced for the last day of the Parliament was “The
Religious Union of the Whole Human Family”; when would be
considered “The elements of perfect religion as
recognized and set forth in the different faiths,” with a view
to determining “the characteristics of the ultimate religion”
and “the center of the coming religious unity of mankind.”
Is it possible that thus, by their own confession, Christian
(?) ministers are unable, at this late day, to determine what
[D_page 186]
should be
the center of religious unity, or the characteristics of perfect
religion? Are they indeed so anxious for a “world-religion”
that they are willing to sacrifice any or all of the principles of true
Christianity, and even the name “Christian,” if necessary, to obtain
it? Even so, they confess. “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee,
thou wicked and slothful servant,” saith the Lord. The preceding days
of the conference were devoted to the setting forth of the various
religions by their respective representatives.
The scheme was a bold and hazardous one, but it should have
opened the eyes of every true child of God to several facts that were
very manifest; namely: (1) that the nominal Christian church has reached
its last extremity of hope in its ability to stand, under the searching
judgments of this day when “the Lord hath a controversy with his
people,” nominal spiritual Israel (Micah 6:1,2); (2) that instead of
repenting of their backslidings and lack of faith and zeal and
godliness, and thus seeking a return of divine favor, they are
endeavoring, by a certain kind of union and cooperation, to support one
another, and to call in the aid of the heathen world to help them to
withstand the judgments of the Lord in exposing the errors of their
human creeds and their misrepresentations of his worthy character; (3)
that they are willing to compromise Christ and his gospel, for the sake
of gaining the friendship of the world and its emoluments of power and
influence; (4) that their blindness is such that they are unable to
distinguish truth from error, or the spirit of the truth from the spirit
of the world; and (5) that they have already lost sight of the doctrines
of Christ.
Doubtless temporary aid will come from the sources whence it
is so enthusiastically sought; but it will be only a preparatory step
which will involve the whole world in the impending doom of Babylon,
causing the kings and merchants
[D_page 187]
and
traders of the whole earth to mourn and lament for this great city. Rev.
18:9,11,17-19
In viewing the proceedings of the great Parliament our
attention is forcibly drawn to several remarkable features: (1) To the
doubting and compromising spirit and attitude of nominal Christianity,
with the exceptions of the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches. (2) To
the confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and of all other
religions. (3) To the clean-cut distinctions, observed by the heathen
sages, between the Christianity taught in the Bible, and that taught by
the Christian missionaries of the various sects of Christendom, who,
along with the Bible, carried their unreasonable and conflicting creeds
to foreign lands. (4) To the heathen estimate of missionary effort, and
its future prospects in their lands. (5) To the influence of the Bible
upon many in foreign lands, notwithstanding its misinterpretations by
those who carried it abroad. (6) To the present influence and probable
results of the great Parliament. (7) To its general aspect as viewed
from the prophetic standpoint.
Compromising the Truth
The great religious Parliament was called together by
Christians—Protestant Christians; it was held in a professedly
Protestant Christian land; and was under the leading and direction of
Protestant Christians, so that Protestants may be considered as
responsible for all its proceedings. Be it observed, then, that the
present spirit of Protestantism is that of compromise and
faithlessness. This Parliament was willing to compromise Christ and his
gospel for the sake of the friendship of antichrist and heathendom. It
gave the honors of both opening and closing its deliberations to
representatives of papacy. And it is noteworthy that, while the faiths
of the various heathen nations were elaborately set
[D_page 188]
forth by
their representatives, there was no systematic presentation of
Christianity in any of its phases, although various themes were
discoursed upon by Christians. How strange it seems that such an
opportunity to preach the gospel of Christ to representative,
intelligent and influential heathen should be overlooked and ignored by
such an assemblage! Were the professed representatives of Christ’s
gospel ashamed of the gospel of Christ? (Rom. 1:16) In the discourses
Roman Catholics had by far the largest showing, being represented no
less than sixteen times in the sessions of the Parliament.
And not only so, but there were those there, professing
Christianity, who earnestly busied themselves in tearing down its
fundamental doctrines—who told the representative heathen of their
doubts as to the inerrancy of the Christian Scriptures; that the Bible
accounts must be received with a large degree of allowance for
fallibility; and that their teachings must be supplemented with human
reason and philosophy, and only accepted to the extent that they accord
with these. There were those there, professing to be Orthodox
Christians, who repudiated the doctrine of the ransom, which is the only
foundation of true Christian faith, others, denying the fall of man,
proclaimed the opposite theory of evolution—that man never was created
perfect, that he never fell, and that consequently he needed no
redeemer; that since his creation in some very low condition, far
removed from the “Image of God,” he has been gradually coming up, and is
still in the process of an evolution whose law is the survival of the
fittest. And this, the very opposite of the Bible doctrine of ransom
and restitution, was the most popular view.
Below we give a few brief extracts indicating the
compromising spirit of Protestant Christianity, both in its attitude
toward that great antichristian system, the Church of
[D_page 189]
Rome, and
also toward the non-Christian faiths.
Hear Dr. Chas. A. Briggs, Professor in a Presbyterian
Theological Seminary, declaim against the sacred Scriptures. The
gentleman was introduced by the President, Dr. Barrows, as “one whose
learning, courage and faithfulness to his convictions have given him a
high place in the church universal,” and was received with loud
applause. He said:
“All that we can claim for the Bible is inspiration and
accuracy for that which suggests the religious lessons to be imparted.
God is true, he cannot lie; he cannot mislead or deceive his creatures.
But when the infinite God speaks to finite man, must he speak words
which are not error? [How absurd the question! If God does not speak
the truth, then of course he is not true.] This depends not only upon
God’s speaking, but on man’s hearing, and also on the means of
communication between God and man. It is necessary to show the capacity
of man to receive the word, before we can be sure that he transmitted it
correctly. [This “learned and reverend” (?) theological professor
should bear in mind that God was able to choose proper instruments for
conveying his truth, as well as to express it to them; and that he did
so is very manifest to every sincere student of his Word. Such an
argument to undermine the validity of the Sacred Scriptures is a mere
subterfuge, and was an insult to the intelligence of an enlightened
audience.] The inspiration of the holy Scriptures does not carry with
it inerrancy in every particular.”
Hear Rev. Theodore Munger, of New Haven, dethrone Christ and
exalt poor fallen humanity to his place. He said:
“Christ is more than a Judean slain on Calvary.
Christ is humanity as it is evolving under the power and grace of God,
and any book touched by the inspiration of this fact [not
that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, but that the evolved humanity as
a whole constitute the Christ, the Anointed] belongs to Christian
literature.”
He instanced Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Matthew
Arnold, Emerson and others, and then added:
[D_page 190]
“Literature with few exceptions—all inspired
literature—stands squarely upon humanity and insists upon it on
ethical grounds and for ethical ends, and this is essential
Christianity ...A theology that insists on a transcendent God,
who sits above the world and spins the thread of its affairs, does not
command the assent of those minds which express themselves in
literature; the poet, the man of genius, the broad and universal thinker
pass it by; they stand too near God to be deceived by such renderings of
his truth.”
Said the Rev. Dr. Rexford of Boston (Universalist):
“I would that we might all confess that a sincere
worship, anywhere and everywhere in the world, is a true worship... The
unwritten but dominant creed of this hour I assume to be that, whatever
worshiper in all the world bends before The Best he knows, and walks
true to the purest light that shines for him, has access to the highest
blessings of heaven.”
He surely did strike the keynote of the present dominant
religious sentiment; but did the Apostle Paul so address the worshipers
of “The Unknown God” on Mars’ Hill? or did Elijah thus defend the
priests of Baal? Paul declares that the only access to God is through
faith in Christ’s sacrifice for our sins; and Peter says, “There is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts
4:12; 17:23-31; 1 Kings 18:21,22
Hear the Rev. Lyman Abbot, Editor of the Outlook,
and formerly Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., claim for all
the church that divine inspiration which, through Christ and the twelve
apostles, gave us the New Testament, that the man of God might be
thoroughly furnished. (2 Tim. 3:17) He said:
“We do not think
that God has spoken only in Palestine, and to the few in that narrow
province. We do not think he has been vocal in Christendom and dumb
everywhere else. No! we believe that he is a speaking God in all times
and in all ages.”
[D_page 191]
But how did he speak to the Prophets of Baal? He has not
revealed himself except to his chosen people—to fleshly Israel in the
Jewish age, and to spiritual Israel in the Gospel age. “You only have I
known of all the families of the earth.” Amos 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:6-10
A letter from Lady Somerset (England), read with
complimentary introduction by President Barrows, made the following
concessions to the Church of Rome:
“I am in sympathy with every effort by which men may be
induced to think together along the lines of their agreement, rather
than of their antagonism...The only way to unite is never to mention
subjects on which we are irrevocably opposed. Perhaps the chief of
these is the historic episcopate, but the fact that he believes in this
while I do not, would not hinder that great and good prelate, Archbishop
Ireland, from giving his hearty help to me, not as a Protestant woman,
but as a temperance worker. The same was true in England of that
lamented leader, Cardinal Manning, and is true today of Mgr. Nugent, of
Liverpool, a priest of the people, universally revered and loved. A
consensus of opinion on the practical outline of the golden rule,
declared negatively by Confucius and positively by Christ, will
bring us all into one camp.”
The doctrine of a vicarious atonement was seldom referred
to, and by many was freely set aside as a relic of the past and unworthy
of the enlightened nineteenth century. Only a few voices were raised in
its defense, and these were not only a very small minority in the
Parliament, but their views were evidently at a discount. Rev. Joseph
Cook was one of this small minority, and his remarks were afterward criticised and roundly denounced from a Chicago pulpit. In his address
Mr. Cook said that the Christian religion was the only true religion,
and the acceptance of it the only means of securing happiness after
death. Referring for illustration of the efficacy of the atonement to
purge even the foulest sins, to one of Shakespeare’s characters, he
said:
[D_page 192]
“Here is Lady
Macbeth. What religion can wash Lady Macbeth’s red right hand? That is
the question I propose to the four continents and the isles of the sea.
Unless you can answer that you have not come with a serious purpose to
the Parliament of religions. I turn to Mohammedanism. Can you wash her
red right hand? I turn to Confucianism and Buddhism. Can you wash her
red right hand?”
In replying to this after the Parliament Rev. Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, Pastor of All Soul’s church, Chicago, and one enthusiastically
interested in the Parliament, said:
“In order that we may discover the immorality of the
vicarious atonement—this ‘look-to-Jesus-and-be-saved’ kind of a scheme
with which the great Boston orator undertook to browbeat out of
countenance the representatives of other faiths and forms of thought at
the Parliament—let us study closely the character of the deed, the
temper of the woman to whom he promised such swift immunity if she would
only ‘look on the cross.’ This champion of orthodoxy indignantly flung
into the faces of the representatives of all religions of the world the
assertion that it is ‘impossible in the very nature of things for one to
enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again’ through this
Christ atonement, this supernatural vicariousness that washes her red
hand white and makes the murderess a saint. All I have to say to such
Christianity is this: I am glad I do not believe in it; and I call upon
all lovers of morality, all friends of justice, all believers in an
infinite God whose will is rectitude, whose providence makes for
righteousness, to deny it. Such a ‘scheme of salvation’ is not only
unreasonable but it is immoral. It is demoralizing, it is a delusion and
a snare in this world, however it may be in the next...I turn from
Calvary if my vision there leaves me selfish enough to ask for a
salvation that leaves Prince Sidartha outside of a heaven in which Lady
Macbeth or any other red-handed soul is eternally included.”
Subsequently an “oriental platform meeting” was held in the
same church, when the same reverend (?) gentleman read select sayings
from Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha,
[D_page 193]
Socrates
and Christ, all tending to show the universality of religion, which was
followed by the address of an Armenian Catholic. After this address,
said the reporter for the public press:
“Mr. Jones said that he had had the temerity to ask
Bishop Keane, of the Catholic University of Washington, if he would
attend this meeting and stand on such a radical platform. The Bishop
had replied with a smile that he would be in Dubuque or he might be
tempted to come. ‘I then asked him,’ said Mr. Jones, ‘if he could
suggest any one.’ The Bishop replied, ‘You must not be in too much of a
hurry. We are getting along very fast. It may not be a long time
before I shall be able to do so.’*
“‘The Roman Catholic Church,’ continued Mr. Jones, ‘under
the leadership of such men as Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland and
Bishop Spalding, is getting along, and these men are forcing the
laggards to work. People tell us that we have given up the Parliament
of religions to the Catholics on one hand and the Pagans on the other.
We will hear from our Pagan friends now. That word pagan does not have
the same meaning as it did, and I thank God for it.’”
Prof. Henry Drummond was on the program of the Parliament
for an address on Christianity and Evolution, but, as he failed to
arrive, his paper was read by Dr. Bristol. In it he said that a better
understanding of the genesis and nature of sin might at least modify
some of the attempts made to get rid of it—referring disparagingly to
the doctrine of atonement, which his doctrine of Evolution would render
null and void.
—————
*However, Rome has since concluded that the
Chicago Parliament was neither a credit to her, nor popular with her
supporters, and has announced that papists will have nothing to do with
such promiscuous Parliaments in the future. And distinct marks of papal
disapprobation are not lacking as against those Roman prelates who took
so prominent a part in the Chicago Parliament. Protestants may have all
the glory!
[D_page 194]
A Few Defenders of the Faith
In the midst of this compromising spirit, so bold and
outspoken, it was indeed refreshing to find a very few representatives
of Protestant Christianity who had the moral courage, in the face of so
much opposition, both latent and expressed, to defend the faith once
delivered to the saints; though even these show signs of perplexity,
because they do not see the divine plan of the ages and the important
relationship of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to the whole
marvelous system of divine truth.
Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, of the Chicago University, spoke on
“The Attitude of Christianity toward Other Religions.” He directed his
hearers to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for an
exposition of Christianity, to the hostile attitude of Christianity
toward all other religions, which must of necessity be false if it be
true, and to our Lord’s exclusive claim of power to save, as manifested
in such expressions as:
“No man
cometh unto the Father [that is, no man can be saved] but by me.”
“I am the
bread of life.”
“If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”
“I am the
light of the world.”
“I am the door of the sheep.”
“All that
came before me are thieves and robbers.”
“I am the
door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.”
“Such,” said he, “are a few specimens of the expressions
from Jesus’ own lips of the sole, exclusive claim to be himself alone
the Savior of man.
“It may be answered, ‘But Jesus also said, ‘I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me’; and we are hence warranted in
believing, of many souls involved in alien religions, that, drawn
consciously or unconsciously to Jesus, they are saved, notwithstanding
the misfortune of their religious environment.
[D_page 195]
“To this, of course, I agree, I am grateful that such
seems indeed to be the teaching of Christianity. [But this hope flows
from a generous heart rather than from a knowledge of the divine plan of
salvation. Prof. W. did not then see that the drawing of the world to
Christ belongs to the Millennial age, that only the drawing of the
Church is now in progress, and that knowledge of the Lord, the drawing
power now, will be the power then; “For the earth shall be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Hab. 2:14] I simply ask to have it borne steadily in mind that it is
not at all the extension of the benefits flowing from the exclusive
power of Jesus to save, that we are at present discussing, but strictly
this question: Does Christianity recognize any share of saving efficacy
as inherent in the non-Christian religions? In other words, is it
anywhere in Scripture represented that Jesus exerts his saving power, in
some degree, greater or less, through religions not his own? If there
is any hint, any shadow of hint, in the Bible, Old Testament or New,
looking in the direction of an affirmative answer to that question, I
confess I never have found it. Hints far from shadowy I have found, and
in abundance, to the contrary.
“I feel the need of begging you to observe that what I
say in this paper is not to be misunderstood as undertaking on behalf of
Christianity to derogate anything whatever from the merit of individual
men among the nations, who have risen to great ethical heights without
aid from historic Christianity in either its New Testament or its Old
Testament form. But it is not of persons, either the mass or the
exceptions, that I task myself here to speak. I am leading you to
consider only the attitude assumed by Christianity toward the
non-Christian religions.
“Let us advance
from weighing the immediate utterances of Jesus to take some account of
those upon whom, as his representatives, Jesus, according to the New
Testament, conferred the right to speak with an authority equal to his
own. Speaking of the adherents generally of the Gentile religions, he
uses this language: ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible
[D_page 196]
God for
the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things.’
“Man, bird, beast, reptile—these four specifications in
their ladder of descent seem to indicate every different form of Gentile
religion with which Christianity, ancient or modern, came into historic
contact. The consequences penally visited by the offended jealous God
of Hebrew and of Christian, for such degradation of the innate
worshiping instinct, such profanation of the idea, once pure in human
hearts, of God the incorruptible, are described by Paul in words whose
mordant, flagrant, caustic, branding power has made them famous and
familiar: ‘Wherefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, unto
uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves;
for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.’
“I arrest the
quotation unfinished. The remainder of the passage descends into
particulars of blame well known, and well known to be truly charged
against the ancient pagan world. No hint of exceptions here in favor of
points defectively good, or at least not so bad, in the religions
condemned; no qualification, no mitigation of sentence suggested.
Everywhere heavy shotted, point blank denunciation. No idea submitted of
there being in some cases true and acceptable worship hidden away,
disguised and unconscious, under false forms. No possibility glanced at
of there being a distinction made by some idolaters, if made only by a
very few discerning among them, between the idol served and the one
incorruptible jealous God as meant by such exceptional idolaters to be
merely symbolized in the idol ostensibly worshiped by them. Reserve
none on behalf of certain initiated, illuminated souls seeking and
finding purer religion in esoteric ‘mysteries’ that were shut out from
the profane vulgar. Christianity leaves no loophole of escape for the
judged and reprobate anti-Christian religions with which it comes in
contact. It shows instead only indiscriminate damnation [condemnation]
leaping out like forked lightning from the glory of his power upon those
incorrigibly
[D_page 197]
guilty of
the sin referred to, the sin of worship paid to gods other than God.
“There is no pleasing alleviation anywhere introduced in
the way of assurance, or even of possible hope, that a benign God will
graciously receive into his ear the ascriptions formally given to
another as virtually, though misconceivingly, intended for himself.
That idea, whether just or not, is not scriptural. It is indeed,
anti-scriptural, therefore anti-Christian. Christianity does not
deserve the praise of any such liberality. As concerns the sole, the
exclusive, the incommunicable prerogatives of God, Christianity is, let
it be frankly admitted, a narrow, a strict, a severe, a jealous
religion. Socrates, dying, may have been forgiven his proposal of a
cock to be offered in sacrifice to Aesculapius; but Christianity, the
Christianity of the Bible, gives us no shadow of reason for supposing
that such idolatrous act on his part was translated by God into worship
acceptable to himself.
“Peter said, ‘Of a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable to him.’
“To fear God first, and then also to work righteousness,
these are the traits characterizing ever and everywhere the man
acceptable to God. But evidently to fear God is not, in the idea of
Christianity, to worship another than he. It will accordingly be in
degree as a man escapes the ethnic religion dominant about him, and
rises—not by means of it, but in spite of it—into the transcending
element of the true divine worship, that he will be acceptable to God.
“Of any ethnic religion, therefore, can it be said that
it is a true religion, only not perfect? Christianity says, No.
Christianity speaks words of undefined, unlimited hope concerning those,
some of those, who shall never have heard of Christ. These words
Christians, of course, will hold and cherish according to their
inestimable value. But let us not mistake them as intended to bear any
relation whatever to the erring religions of mankind. Those religions
the Bible nowhere represents as pathetic and partly successful gropings
after God. They are one and all represented as groping downward, not
groping upward. According to Christianity they hinder, they do not
help. Their adherents’ hold on
[D_page 198]
them is
like the blind grasping of drowning men on roots and rocks that only
tend to keep them to the bottom of the river. The truth that is in the
false religion may help, but it will be the truth, not the false
religion.
“According to Christianity the false religion exerts all
its force to choke and to kill the truth that is in it. Hence the
historic degeneration represented in the first chapter of Romans as
affecting false religions in general. If they were upward reachings
they would grow better and better. If, as Paul teaches, they in fact
grow worse and worse, it must be because they are downward reachings.
“The attitude, therefore, of Christianity toward
religions other than itself is an attitude of universal, absolute,
eternal, unappeasable hostility, while toward all men everywhere, the
adherents of the false religions by no means excepted, its attitude is
an attitude of grace, mercy, peace for whosoever will [receive it]. How
many will be found that will [receive it], is a problem which
Christianity leaves unsolved.”
The Rev. James Devine, of New York City, also spoke on the
message of Christianity to other religions, clearly presenting the
doctrine of redemption through the precious blood of Christ. He said:
“We are brought now to another fundamental truth in
Christian teaching—the mysterious doctrine of atonement. Sin is a fact
which is indisputable. It is universally recognized and acknowledged.
It is its own evidence. It is, moreover, a barrier between man and his
God. The divine holiness and sin, with its loathsomeness, its
rebellion, its horrid degradation and its hopeless ruin, cannot coalesce
in any system of moral government. God cannot tolerate sin or temporize
with it or make a place for it in his presence. He cannot parley with
it; he must punish it. He cannot treat with it; he must try it at the
bar. He cannot overlook it; he must overcome it. He cannot give it a
moral status; he must visit with the condemnation it deserves.
“Atonement is God’s marvelous method of vindicating, once
for all, before the universe, his eternal attitude toward sin, by the
voluntary self-assumption, in the spirit of sacrifice, of its penalty.
This he does in the person of Jesus
[D_page 199]
Christ.
The facts of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection take their
place in the realm of veritable history, and the moral value and
propitiatory efficacy of his perfect obedience and sacrificial death
become a mysterious element of limitless worth in the process of
readjusting the relation of the sinner to his God.
“Christ is recognized by God as a substitute. The merit
of his obedience and the exalted dignity of his sacrifice are both
available to faith. The sinner, humble, penitent, and conscious of
unworthiness, accepts Christ as his redeemer, his intercessor, his
savior, and simply believes in trusting in his assurances and promises,
based as they are upon his atoning intervention, and receives from God,
as the gift of sovereign love, all the benefits of Christ’s mediatorial
work. This is God’s way of reaching the goal of pardon and
reconciliation. It is his way of being himself just and yet
accomplishing the justification of the sinner. Here again we have the
mystery of wisdom in its most august exemplification.
“This is the heart of the gospel. It throbs with
mysterious love; it pulsates with ineffable throes of divine healing; it
bears a vital relation to the whole scheme of government; it is in its
hidden activities beyond the scrutiny of human reason; but it sends the
life-blood coursing through history and it gives to Christianity its
superb vitality and its undying vigor. It is because Christianity
eliminates sin from the problem that its solution is complete and final.
“Christianity must speak in the name of God. To him it
owes its existence, and the deep secret of its dignity and power is that
it reveals him. It would be effrontery for it to speak simply upon its
own responsibility, or even in the name of reason. It has no
philosophy of evolution to propound. It has a message from God
to deliver. It is not itself a philosophy; it is a religion. It is not
earth-born; it is God-wrought. It comes not from man, but from God, and
is intensely alive with his power, alert with his love, benign with his
goodness, radiant with his light, charged with his truth, sent with his
message, inspired with his energy, pregnant with his wisdom, instinct
with the gift of spiritual healing and mighty with supreme authority.
“It has a mission among men, whenever or wherever it
[D_page 200]
finds
them, which is as sublime as creation, as marvelous as spiritual
existence and as full of mysterious meaning as eternity. It finds its
focus, and as well its radiating center, in the personality of its great
revealer and teacher, to whom, before his advent, all the fingers of
light pointed, and from whom, since his incarnation, all the brightness
of the day has shone.
“Its spirit is full of simple sincerity, exalted dignity
and sweet unselfishness. It aims to impart a blessing rather than to
challenge a comparison. It is not so anxious to vindicate itself as to
confer its benefits. It is not so solicitous to secure supreme honor
for itself as to win its way to the heart. It does not seek to taunt,
to disparage or humiliate its rival, but rather to subdue by love,
attract by its own excellence and supplant by virtue of its own
incomparable superiority. It is itself incapable of a spirit of rivalry,
because of its own indisputable right to reign. It has no use for a
sneer, it can dispense with contempt, it carries no weapon of violence,
it is not given to argument, it is incapable of trickery or deceit, and
it repudiates cant. It relies ever upon its own intrinsic merit, and
bases all its claims on its right to be heard and honored.
“Its miraculous evidence is rather an exception than a
rule. It was a sign to help weak faith. It was a concession made in
the spirit of condescension. Miracles suggest mercy quite as much as
they announce majesty. When we consider the unlimited sources of divine
power, and the ease with which signs and wonders might have been
multiplied in bewildering variety and impressiveness, we are conscious
of a rigid conservation of power and a distinct repudiation of the
spectacular. The mystery of Christian history is the sparing way in
which Christianity has used its resources. It is a tax upon faith,
which is often painfully severe, to note the apparent lack of energy and
dash and resistless force in the seemingly slow advances of our holy
religion. [It must of necessity be so to those who have not yet come to
an understanding of the divine plan of the ages.]
“Doubtless God had
his reasons, but in the meantime we cannot but recognize in Christianity
a spirit of mysterious reserve, of marvelous patience, of subdued
undertone, of
[D_page 201]
purposeful restraint. It does not ‘cry, nor lift up, nor cause its
voice to be heard in the street.’ Centuries come and go and
Christianity touches only portions of the earth, but wherever it touches
it transfigures. It seems to despise material adjuncts, and counts only
those victories worth having which are won through spiritual contact
with the individual soul. Its relation to other religions has been
characterized by singular reserve, and its progress has been marked by
an unostentatious dignity which is in harmony with the majestic attitude
of God, its author.
“We are right, then, in speaking of the spirit of this
message as wholly free from the commonplace sentiment of rivalry,
entirely above the use of spectacular or meretricious methods,
infinitely removed from all mere devices or dramatic effect, wholly free
from cant or doublefacedness, with no anxiety for alliance with worldly
power or social eclat, caring more for a place of influence in a humble
heart than for a seat of power on a royal throne, wholly intent on
claiming the loving allegiance of the soul and securing the moral
transformation of character, in order that its own spirit and principles
may sway the spiritual life of men.
“It speaks, then, to other religions with unqualified
frankness and plainness, based on its own incontrovertible claim to a
hearing. It acknowledges the undoubted sincerity of personal conviction
and the intense earnestness of moral struggle in the case of many
serious souls who, like the Athenians of old, ‘worship in ignorance’; it
warns, and persuades, and commands, as is its right; it speaks as Paul
did in the presence of cultured heathenism on Mars’ Hill, of that
appointed day in which the world must be judged, and of ‘that man’ by
whom it is to be judged; it echoes and re-echoes its invariable and
inflexible call to repentance; it requires acceptance of its moral
standards; it exacts submission, loyalty, reverence and humility.
“All this it does
with a superb and unwavering tone of quiet insistence. It often presses
its claim with argument, appeal and tender urgency; yet in it all and
through it all should be recognized a clear, resonant, predominant tone
of uncompromising insistence, revealing that supreme personal will which
originated Christianity, and in whose
[D_page 202]
name it
ever speaks. It delivers its message with an air of untroubled
confidence and quiet mastery. There is no anxiety about precedence, no
undue care for externals, no possibility of being patronized, no
undignified spirit of competition. It speaks, rather, with the
consciousness of that simple, natural, incomparable, measureless
supremacy which quickly disarms rivalry, and in the end challenges the
admiration and compels the submission of hearts free from malice and
guile.”
Among these noble utterances in defense of the truth was
also that of Count Bernstorff, of Germany. He said:
“I trust that nobody is here who thinks lightly of his
own religion [though he certainly learned to the contrary before the
parliament closed. This was said at its beginning.] I for myself
declare that I am here as an individual evangelical Christian, and that
I should never have set my foot in this Parliament if I thought that it
signified anything like a consent that all religions are equal, and that
it is only necessary to be sincere and upright. I can consent to
nothing of this kind. I believe only the Bible to be true, and
Protestant Christianity the only true religion. I wish no
compromise of any kind.
“We cannot deny that we who meet in this Parliament are
separated by great and important principles. We admit that these
differences cannot be bridged over; but we meet, believing everybody has
the right to his faith. You invite everybody to come here as a sincere
defender of his own faith. I, for my part, stand before you with the
same wish that prompted Paul when he stood before the representatives of
the Roman Court and Agrippa, the Jewish king. I would to God that all
that hear me today were both almost, and altogether, such as I am. I
cannot say ‘except these bonds.’ I thank God I am free; except for all
these faults and deficiencies which are in me and which prevent me from
embracing my creed as I should like to do.
“But what do we then meet for, if we cannot show
tolerance? Well, the word tolerance is used in different ways. If the
words of King Frederick of Prussia—‘In my country everybody can go to
heaven after his own fashion’—are used as a maxim of statesmanship,
we cannot approve of it too
[D_page 203]
highly.
What bloodshed, what cruelty would have been spared in the world if it
had been adopted. But if it is the expression of the religious
indifference prevalent during this last century and at the court
of the monarch who was the friend of Voltaire, then we must not
accept it.
“St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, rejects every
other doctrine, even if it were taught by an angel from heaven. We
Christians are servants of our Master, the living Savior. We have
no right to compromise the truth he intrusted to us; either to
think lightly of it, or to withhold the message he has given us for
humanity. But we meet together, each one wishing to gain the others to
his own creed. Will this not be a Parliament of war instead of peace?
Will it take us further from, instead of bringing us nearest to, each
other? I think not, if we hold fast the truth that our great vital
doctrines can only be defended and propagated by spiritual means. An
honest fight with spiritual weapons need not estrange the combatants; on
the contrary, it often brings them nearer.
“I think this conference will have done enough to engrave
its memory forever on the leaves of history if this great principle
[religious liberty] finds general adoption. One light is dawning in
every heart, and the nineteenth century has brought us much progress in
this respect; yet we risk to enter the twentieth century before the
great principle of religious liberty has found universal acceptance.”
In marked contrast with the general spirit of the
Parliament was also the discourse of Mr. Grant, of Canada. He said:
“It seems to me that we should begin this Parliament of Religions, not
with a consciousness that we are doing a great thing, but with an humble
and lowly confession of sin and failure. Why have not the inhabitants
of the world fallen before the truth? The fault is ours. The Apostle
Paul, looking back on centuries of marvelous, God-guided history, saw as
the key to all its maxims this: that Jehovah had stretched out his hands
all day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people; that, although
there was always a remnant of the righteous. Israel as a nation did not
understand Jehovah, and therefore failed to understand her own marvelous
mission.
[D_page 204]
“If St. Paul were here today would he not utter the same sad confession
with regard to the nineteenth century of Christendom? Would he not have
to say that we have been proud of our Christianity, instead of allowing
our Christianity to humble and crucify us; that we have boasted of
Christianity as something we possessed, instead of allowing it to
possess us; that we have divorced it from the moral and spiritual order
of the world, instead of seeing that it is that which interpenetrates,
interprets, completes and verifies that order; and that so we have
hidden its glories and obscured its power. All day long our Savior has
been saying, ‘I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and
gainsaying people.’ But the only one indispensable condition of success
is that we recognize the cause of our failure, that we confess it, with
humble, lowly, penitent and obedient minds, and that with quenchless
Western courage and faith we now go forth and do otherwise.”
Would that these sentiments had found an echo in the great
Parliament!—but they did not. On the other hand, it was characterized
by great boastfulness as to the “marvelous religious progress
of the nineteenth century”; and Count Bernstorff’s first impression,
that it meant a bold compromise of Christian principles and doctrine,
was the correct one, as the subsequent sessions of the Parliament
proved.
The Contrasted Attitudes of
Catholicism,
Heathenism and Protestant
Christianity
The confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and the
various heathen religions was in marked contrast with the skepticism of
Protestant Christianity. Not a sentence was uttered by any of them
against the authority of their sacred books; they praised and commended
their religions, while they listened with surprise to the skeptical and
infidel discourses of Protestant Christians against the Christian
religion and against the Bible, for which even the heathen showed
greater respect.
[D_page 205]
As evidence of the surprise of the foreigners on learning of
this state of things among Christians, we quote the following from the
published address of one of the delegates from Japan at a great meeting
held in Yokohama to welcome their return and to hear their report. The
speaker said:
“When we received
the invitation to attend the Parliament of Religions, our Buddhist
organization would not send us as representatives of the body. The
great majority believed that it was a shrewd move on the part of
Christians to get us there and then hold us up to ridicule or try to
convert us. We accordingly went as individuals. But it was a wonderful
surprise which awaited us. Our ideas were all mistaken. The Parliament
was called because the Western nations have come to realize the weakness
and folly of Christianity, and they really wished to hear from us of our
religion, and to learn what the best religion is. There is no better
place in the world to propagate the teachings of Buddhism than America.
Christianity is merely an adornment of society in America. It is deeply
believed by very few. The great majority of Christians drink and commit
various gross sins, and live very dissolute lives, although it is a very
common belief and serves as a social adornment. Its lack of power
proves its weakness. The meetings showed the great superiority of
Buddhism over Christianity, and the mere fact of calling the meetings
showed that the Americans and other Western people had lost their faith
in Christianity and were ready to accept the teachings of our superior
religion.”
It is no wonder that a Japanese Christian said, at the close
of the addresses, “How could American Christians make so great a mistake
as to hold such a meeting and injure Christianity as these meetings will
do in Japan?”
Those who are posted in history know something of the
character of that great antichristian power, the Church of Rome, with
which affiliation is so earnestly sought by Protestants; and those who
are keeping open eyes on her present operations know that her heart and
character are still unchanged.
[D_page 206]
Those who
are at all informed know well that the Greek Catholic Church has
supported and approved, if indeed it has not been the instigator of, the
Russian persecution of the Jews, “Stundists” and all other Christians
who, awaking from the blindness and superstition of the Greek Church,
are seeking and finding God and truth through the study of his Word.
The persecution incited by the Greek Catholic priests and prosecuted by
the police are of the most cruel and revolting nature. But,
nevertheless, union and cooperation with both these systems, the Roman
and Greek Catholic Churches, is most earnestly sought, as also with all
the forms of heathen superstition and ignorance.
The Gross Darkness of the
Heathenism with
which Christians Desire and
Seek Alliance
Of the gross darkness of the heathenism with which
cooperation and sympathy are now craved by Christians, we may gain some
idea from the following indignant retort of Dr. Pentecost against the
critical tone which some of the foreigners assumed toward Christianity
and Christian missions. He said:
“I
think it is a pity that anything should tend to degenerate the
discussions of this Parliament into a series of criminations and
recriminations; nevertheless, we Christians have been sitting patiently
and listening to a series of criticisms upon the results of Christianity
from certain representatives of the Eastern religions. For instance,
the slums of Chicago and New York, the nameless wickedness palpable to
the eye even of the strangers who are our guests; the licentiousness,
the drunkenness, the brawls, the murders, and the crimes of the criminal
classes have been scored up against us. The shortcomings of Congress
and government both in England and America have been charged to
Christianity. The opium trade, the rum traffic, the breach of treaties,
the inhuman and barbarous laws against the Chinaman, etc., have all been
charged upon the Christian
[D_page 207]
church.
[But if Christians claim that these are Christian nations, can they
reasonably blame these heathen representatives for thinking and judging
them accordingly?]
“It seems almost needless to say that all these things,
the immoralities, drunkenness, crimes, unbrotherliness, and the selfish
greed of these various destructive traffics which have been carried from
our countries to the Orient lie outside the pale of Christianity. [No,
not if these are Christian nations. In making this claim, the church is
chargeable with the sins of the nations, and they are justly charged
against her.] The Church of Christ is laboring night and day to correct
and abolish these crimes. The unanimous voice of the Christian Church
condemns the opium traffic, the liquor traffic, the Chinese acts of
oppression, and all forms of vice and greed of which our friends from
the East complain.
“We are willing to be criticized; but when I recall the
fact that these criticisms are in part from gentlemen who represent a
system of religion whose temples, manned by the highest casts of Brahmanical priesthood, are the authorized and appointed cloisters of a
system of immorality and debauchery the parallel of which is not known
in any Western country, I feel that silence gives consent. I could take
you to ten thousand temples, more or less—more rather than less—in every
part of India, to which are attached from two to four hundred
priestesses, whose lives are not all they should be.
“I have seen this with my own eyes, and nobody denies it
in India. If you talk to the Brahmans about it, they will say it is a
part of their system for the common people. Bear in mind this system is
the authorized institution of the Hindoo religion. One needs only to
look at the abominable carvings upon the temples, both of the Hindoos
and Buddhists, the hideous symbols of the ancient Phallic systems, which
are the most popular objects worshiped in India, to be impressed with
the corruption of the religions. Bear in mind, these are not only
tolerated, but instituted, directed and controlled by the priests of
religion. Only the shameless paintings and portraiture of ancient
Pompeii equal in obscenity the things that are openly seen in and about
the entrances to the temples of India.
[D_page 208]
“It seems a little hard that we should bear the criticism
which these representatives of Hindooism make upon the godless portion
of Western countries, when they are living in such enormous glass houses
as these, every one of them erected, protected and defended by the
leaders of their own religion.
“We have heard a good deal about the ‘fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man,’ as being one of the essential doctrines of
the religions of the East. As a matter of fact, I have never been able
to find—and I have challenged the production all over India—a single
text in any of the Hindoo sacred literature that justifies or even
suggests the doctrine of the ‘fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man.’ This is a pure plagiarism from Christianity. We rejoice that
they have adopted and incorporated it. How can a Brahman, who looks
upon all low-caste men, and especially upon the poor pariahs, with a
spirit of loathing, and regards them as a different order of beings,
sprung from monkeys and devils, presume to tell us that he believes in
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? If a Brahman believes
in the brotherhood of man, why will he refuse the social amenities and
common hospitalities to men of other castes, as well as to his Western
brethren, whom he so beautifully enfolds in the condescending arms of
his newly found doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man?
“If there is any brotherhood of man in India the most
careless observer need not hesitate to say that there is no sisterhood
recognized by them. Let the nameless horrors of which the Hindoo women
of India are the subjects answer to this statement.
“Until the English
government put down a strong hand the ancient religious Hindoo
institution of Suttee, hundreds of Hindoo widows every year gladly flew
to the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, thus embracing the flames
that burned their bodies rather than to deliver themselves to the
nameless horrors and living hell of Hindoo widowhood. Let our Hindoo
friends tell us what their religion has done for the Hindoo widow, and
especially the child widow, with her head shaved like a criminal,
stripped
[D_page 209]
of her
ornaments, clothed in rags, reduced to a position of slavery worse than
we can conceive, made the common drudge and scavenger of the family, and
not infrequently put to even worse and nameless uses. To this state and
condition the poor widow is reduced under the sanction of Hindooism.
Only two years ago the British government was appealed to to pass a new
and stringent law ‘raising the age of consent’ to twelve years, at which
it was lawful for the Hindoo to consummate the marriage relation with
his child wife. The Christian hospitals, filled with abused little
girls barely out of their babyhood, became so outrageous a fact that the
government had to step in and stop these crimes, which were perpetrated
in the name of religion. So great was the excitement in India over this
that it was feared that a religious revolution which would almost lead
to a new mutiny was imminent.
“We have been criticized by our Oriental friends for
judging with an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, because at a recent
challenge in the early part of this Parliament only five persons were
able to say that they had read the Bible of Buddha; so it was taken for
granted that our judgment was ignorant and unjust. The same challenge
might have been made in Burmah or Ceylon, and outside of the priesthood
it is almost fair to say that not so many would have been able to say
they had read their own Scriptures. The Badas of the Hindoos are objects
of worship. None but a Brahman may teach, much less read them. Before
the Christian missionary went to India, the Sanskrit was practically a
dead language. If the Indian Scriptures have at least been translated
into the vernacular or given to the Western nations, it is because the
Christian missionary and Western scholars have rediscovered them,
unearthed them, translated them and brought them forth to the light of
day. The amount of the Sanskrit Scriptures known by the ordinary Indian
who has secured a Western education is only those portions which have
been translated into English or the vernacular by European or Western
scholars. The common people, ninety-nine one-hundredths of all, know
only tradition. Let us contrast this dead exclusiveness on the part of
these Indian religions with the fact that the
[D_page 210]
Christian
has translated his Bible into more than three hundred languages and
dialects, and has sent it broadcast by hundreds of millions among all
the nations and tongues and peoples of the earth. We court the light,
but it would seem that the Bibles of the East love the darkness rather
than light, because they will not bear the light of universal
publication.
“The new and better Hindooism of today is a development
under the influence of a Christian environment, but it has not yet
attained to that ethical standard which gives it right to read the
Christian Church a lesson in morals. Until India purges her temples of
worse than Augean filth, and her pundits and priests disown and denounce
the awful acts and deeds done in the name of religion, let her be modest
in proclaiming morals to other nations and people.”
Heathen
Reformers Feeling After God
While Christendom stood representatively before the representative
heathen world, boastful of its religious progress, and knowing not that
it was “poor and blind and miserable and naked” (Rev. 3:17), the
contrast of an evident feeling after God on the part of some in heathen
lands was very marked; and the keenness with which they perceived and
indirectly criticized the inconsistencies of Christians is worthy of
special note.
In two able addresses by representative Hindoos, we have set
before us a remarkable movement in India which gives some idea of the
darkness of heathen lands, and also of the influence of our Bible, which
the missionaries carried there. The Bible has been doing a work which
the conflicting creeds that accompanied it, and claimed to interpret it,
have hindered, but have not destroyed. From Japan also we hear of
similar conditions. Below we append extracts from three addresses
remarkable for their evident sincerity, thought and clear expression,
and showing the very serious attitude of heathen reformers who are
feeling after God, if haply they might find him.
[D_page 211]
A Voice from New India
Mr. Mozoomdar addressed the assembly as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT, REPRESENTATIVES OF NATIONS AND RELIGIONS:
The Brahmo-Somaj of India, which I have the honor to represent, is a new
society; our religion is a new religion, but it comes from far, far
antiquity, from the very roots of our national life, hundreds of
centuries ago.
“Sixty-three years ago the whole land of India was full
of a mighty clamor. The great jarring noise of a heterogeneous
polytheism rent the stillness of the sky. The cry of widows; nay, far
more lamentable, the cry of those miserable women who had to be burned
on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, desecrated the holiness of
God’s earth. We had the Buddhist goddess of the country, the mother of
the people, ten handed, holding in each hand the weapons for the defense
of her children. We had the white goddess of learning, playing on her
Vena, a stringed instrument of music, the strings of wisdom. The
goddess of good fortune, holding in her arms, not the horn, but the
basket of plenty, blessing the nations of India, was there; and the god
with the head of an elephant; and the god who rides on a peacock, and
the thirty-three millions of gods and goddesses besides. I have my
theory about the mythology of Hindooism, but this is not the time to
take it up.
“Amid the din and clash of this polytheism and social
evil, amid all the darkness of the times, there arose a man, a Brahman,
pure bred and pure born, whose name was Raja Ram Dohan Roy. Before he
became a man he wrote a book proving the falsehood of all polytheism and
the truth of the existence of the living God. This brought upon his
head persecution. In 1830 this man founded a society known as the
Brahmo-Somaj—the society of the worshipers of the one living God.
“The Brahmo-Somaj founded this monotheism upon the
inspiration of the old Hindoo Scriptures, the Vedas and the Upanishads.
“In the course of time, as the movement grew, the members
began to doubt whether the Hindoo Scriptures were really infallible. In
their souls they thought they heard a voice which here and there, at
first in feeble accents, contradicted
[D_page 212]
the Vedas
and the Upanishads. What shall be our theological principles? Upon
what principles shall our religion stand? The small accents in which
the question first was asked became louder and louder, and were more and
more echoed in the rising religious society, until it became the most
practical of all problems—upon what book shall all true religion stand?
“Briefly they found that it was impossible that the Hindoo Scriptures should be the only record of true religion. They found
that although there were truths in the Hindoo Scriptures, they could not
recognize them as the only infallible standard of spiritual reality. So
twenty-one years after the founding of the Brahmo-Somaj the doctrine of
the infallibility of the Hindoo Scriptures was given up.
“Then a further question came. Are there not other
scriptures also? Did I not tell you the other day, that on the imperial
throne of India Christianity now sat with the Gospel of Peace in one
hand and the scepter of civilization in the other? The Bible has
penetrated into India. The Bible is the book which mankind shall not
ignore. Recognizing therefore, on the one hand, the great inspiration
of the Hindoo scriptures, we could not but on the other hand recognize
the inspiration and the authority of the Bible. And in 1861 we
published a book in which extracts from all scriptures were given as the
book which was to be read in the course of our devotions. It was not
the Christian missionary that drew our attention to the Bible; it was
not the Mohammedan priests who showed us the excellent passages in the
Koran; it was no Zoroastrian who preached to us the greatness of his
Zend-Avesta; but there was in our hearts the God of infinite reality,
the source of inspiration of all the books, of the Bible, of the Koran,
of the Zend-Avesta, who drew our attention to the excellencies as
revealed in the record of holy experiences everywhere. By his leading
and by his light it was that we recognized these facts, and upon the
rock of everlasting and eternal reality our theological basis was laid.
“Was it theology without morality? What is the
inspiration of this book or the authority of that prophet without
personal holiness—the cleanliness of this God-made
[D_page 213]
temple?
Soon after we had got through our theology, the fact stared us in the
face that we were not good men, pure minded, holy men, and that there
were innumerable evils about us, in our houses, in our national usages,
in the organization of our society. The Brahmo-Somaj, therefore, next
turned its hand to the reformation of society. In 1851 the first
intermarriage was celebrated. Intermarriage in India means the marriage
of persons belonging to different castes. Caste is a sort of Chinese
wall that surrounds every household and every little community, and
beyond the limits of which no audacious man or woman shall stray. In
the Brahmo-Somaj we asked, ‘Shall this Chinese wall disgrace the freedom
of God’s children forever?’ No! Break it down; down with it, and away.
“Next, my honored leader and friend, Keshub Chunder Sen,
so arranged that marriage between different castes should take place.
The Brahmans were offended. Wise-acres shook their heads; even leaders
of the Brahmo-Somaj shrugged up their shoulders and put their hands in
their pockets. ‘These young firebrands,’ they said, ‘are going to set
fire to the whole of society.’ But intermarriage took place, and
widow-marriage took place.
“Do you know what
the widows of India are? A little girl of ten or twelve years happens
to lose her husband before she knows his features very well, and from
that tender age to her dying day she shall go through penances and
austerities and miseries and loneliness and disgrace which you tremble
to hear of. I do not approve of or understand the conduct of a woman
who marries a first time and then a second time and then a third time
and a fourth time—who marries as many times as there are seasons in the
year. I do not understand the conduct of such men and women. But I
think that when a little child of eleven loses what men call her
husband, to put her to the wretchedness of a lifelong widowhood and
inflict upon her miseries which would disgrace a criminal, is a piece of
inhumanity which cannot too soon be done away with. Hence,
intermarriages and widow marriages. Our hands were thus laid upon the
problem of social and domestic improvement, and the result of that was
that very soon a rupture took place in the Brahmo-Somaj.
[D_page 214]
We young
men had to go—we, with all our social reform—and shift for ourselves as
we best might. When these social reforms were partially completed,
there came another question.
“We had married the widow; we had prevented the burning
of widows; what about our personal purity, the sanctification of our own
consciences, the regeneration of our own souls? What about our
acceptance before the awful tribunal of the God of infinite justice?
Social reform and the doing of public good is itself only legitimate
when it develops into the all-embracing principle of personal purity and
the holiness of the soul.
“My friends, I am often afraid, I confess, when I
contemplate the condition of European and American society, where your
activities are so manifold, your work is so extensive that you are
drowned in it, and you have little time to consider the great questions
of regeneration, of personal sanctification, of trial and judgment and
of acceptance before God. That is the question of all questions.
“After the end of the work of our social reform, we were
therefore led into the great subject, How shall this unregenerate nature
be regenerated; this defiled temple, what waters shall wash it into a
new and pure condition? All these motives and desires and evil
impulses, the animal inspirations, what will put an end to them all, and
make man what he was, the immaculate child of God, as Christ was, as all
regenerated men were? Theological principle first, moral principle
next; and in the third place the spiritual of the Brahmo-Somaj—devotions,
repentance, prayer, praise, faith; throwing ourselves entirely and
absolutely upon the spirit of God and upon his saving love.
[This heathen philosopher sees to only a partial extent what
sin is, as is indicated by his expression, “an immaculate child of
God...as all regenerated men were.” He does not
see that even the best of the fallen race are far from
being actually spotless, immaculate, perfect; hence that they all need
the merit of Christ's perfection and sin-sacrifice to justify them. He
speaks of prayers, faith, etc., and the mercy of God, but he has not yet
learned that justice is the foundation
[D_page
215]
underlying all of
God’s dealings; and that only through the merit of Christ’s sacrifice
can God be just, and yet the justifier of sinners believing in Christ,
and thus covered by his great atonement for sin, made eighteen centuries
ago—once for all—to be testified to all in due time.]
“Moral aspirations
do not mean holiness; a desire to be good, does not
mean to be good. The bullock that carries on his back
hundredweight of sugar does not taste a grain of sweetness because of
his unbearable load. And all our aspirations, and all our fine wishes,
and all our fine dreams, and fine sermons, either hearing or speaking
them—going to sleep over them or listening to them intently—these will
never make life perfect. Devotion only, prayer, direct perception of
God’s spirit, communion with him, absolute self-abasement before his
majesty, devotional fervor, devotional excitement, spiritual absorption,
living and moving in God—that is the secret of personal holiness. And in
the third stage of our career, therefore, spiritual excitement, long
devotions, intense fervor, contemplation, endless self-abasement, not
merely before God but before man, became the rule of our lives. God is
unseen; it does not harm anybody or make him appear less respectable if
he says to God: ‘I am a sinner; forgive me.’ But to make your
confessions before man, to abase yourselves before your brothers and
sisters, to take the dust off the feet of holy men, to feel that you are
a miserable, wretched object in God’s holy congregation—that requires a
little self humiliation, a little moral courage.
“The last principle I
have to take up is the progressiveness of the Brahmo-Somaj.
“Christianity declares the
glory of God; Hindooism speaks about his infinite and eternal
excellence; Mohammedanism, with fire and sword, proves the almightiness
of his will; Buddhism says how peaceful and joyful he is. He is the God
of all religions, of all denominations, of all lands, of all scriptures,
and our progress lay in harmonizing these various systems, these various
prophecies and developments into one great system. Hence the new sytem
of religion in the Brahmo-Somaj is called the New
[D_page 216]
Dispensation. The Christian speaks in terms of admiration of
Christianity; so does the Hebrew of Judaism; so does the Mohammedan of
the Koran; so does the Zoroastrian of the Zend-Avesta. The Christian
admires his principles of spiritual culture; the Hindoo does the same;
the Mohammedan does the same.
“But the Brahmo-Somaj accepts and harmonizes all these
precepts, systems, principles, teachings and disciplines and makes them
into one system, and that is his religion. For a whole decade, my
friend, Keshub Chunder Sen, myself and other apostles of the
Brahmo-Somaj have traveled from village to village, from province to
province, from continent to continent, declaring this new dispensation
and the harmony of all religious prophecies and systems unto the glory
of the one true, living God. But we are a subject race; we are
uneducated; we are incapable; we have not the resources of money to get
men to listen to our message. In the fullness of time you have called
this august Parliament of religions, and the message that we could not
propagate you had taken into your hands to propagate.
“I do not come to the sessions of this Parliament as a
mere student, nor as one who has to justify his own system. I come as a
disciple, as a follower, as a brother. May your labors be blessed with
prosperity, and not only shall your Christianity and your America be
exalted, but the Brahmo-Somaj will feel most exalted: and this poor man
who has come such a long distance to crave your sympathy and your
kindness shall feel himself amply rewarded.
“May the spread of the New Dispensation rest with you and
make you our brothers and sisters. Representatives of all religions,
may all your religions merge into the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man, that Christ’s prophecy may be fulfilled, the world’s
hope may be fulfilled, and mankind may become one kingdom with God, our
Father.”
Here we have a clear statement of the object and hopes of
these visiting philosophers; and who shall say that they failed to use
their opportunities? If we heard much before the Parliament of the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood
[D_page 217]
of
unregenerated men—with no recognized need of a Savior, a Redeemer, to
make a reconciliation for iniquity and to open up “a new and living way
[of return to God’s family] through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh,” we have heard much more of the same thing since. If we heard
before the Parliament of society’s redemption by moral reforms, as in
opposition to redemption by the precious blood, we have heard still more
of his Christless religion since. It is the final stage of the falling
away of these last days of the Gospel age. It will continue and
increase: the Scriptures declare that “a thousand shall fall at thy
side”; and the Apostle Paul urges, “Take unto you the whole armor of
God, that you may be able to stand in that evil day”; and
John the Revelator significantly inquires, “Who shall be able to
stand?” The entire tenor of Scripture indicates that it is God’s will
that a great test should now come upon all who have named
the name of Christ, and that all the great mass of “tare”-professors
should fall away from all profession of faith in the
ransom-sacrifice made once for all by our Lord Jesus; because
they never received this truth in the love of it. 2 Thess. 2:10-12
A Voice from Japan
When Kinza Ringe M. Harai, the learned Japanese Buddhist,
read his paper on “The Real Position of Japan toward Christianity,” the
brows of some of the Christian missionaries on the platform contracted
and their heads shook in disapproval. But the Buddhist directed his
stinging rebukes at the false Christians who have done so much to impede
the work of spreading the gospel in Japan. The paper follows:
“There are very few countries in the world so
misunderstood as Japan. Among the innumberable unfair judgments, the
religious thought of my countrymen is especially misrepresented, and the
whole nation is condemned as
[D_page 218]
heathen.
Be they heathen, pagan, or something else, it is a fact that from the
beginning of our history Japan has received all teachings with open
mind; and also that the instructions which came from outside have
commingled with the native religion in entire harmony, as is seen by so
many temples built in the name of truth with a mixed appellation of
Buddhism and Shintoism; as is seen by the affinity among the teachers of
Confucianism and Taoism, or other isms, and the Buddhists and Shinto
priests; as is seen by the individual Japanese, who pays his respects to
all teachings mentioned above; as is seen by the peculiar construction
of the Japanese houses, which have generally two rooms, one for a
miniature Buddhist temple and the other for a small Shinto shrine,
before which the family study the respective scriptures of the two
religions. In reality Synthetic religion is the Japanese speciality,
and I will not hesitate to call it Japanism.
“But you will protest and say: ‘Why, then, is
Christianity not so warmly accepted by your nation as other religions?’
This is the point which I wish especially to present before you. There
are two causes why Christianity is not so cordially received. This
great religion was widely spread in our country, but in 1637 the
Christian missionaries, combined with the converts, caused a tragic and
bloody rebellion against the country, and it was understood that those
missionaries intended to subjugate Japan to their own mother country.
This shocked Japan, and it took the government of the Sho-gun a year to
suppress this terrible and intrusive commotion. To those who accuse us
that our mother country prohibited Christianity, not now, but in a past
age, I will reply that it was not from religious or racial antipathy,
but to prevent such another insurrection; and to protect our
independence we were obliged to prohibit the promulgation of the
gospels.
“If our history
had had no such record of foreign devastation under the disguise of
religion, and if our people had had no hereditary horror and prejudice
against the name of Christianity, it might have been eagerly embraced by
the whole nation. But this incident has passed, and we may forget it.
Yet it is not entirely unreasonable that the terrified suspicion, or you
may say superstition, that Christianity is
[D_page 219]
the instrument of depredation, should have been avoidably
or unavoidably aroused in the oriental mind, when it is an admitted fact
that some of the powerful nations of Christendom are gradually
encroaching upon the Orient, and when the following circumstance is
daily impressed upon our mind, reviving a vivid memory of the past
historical occurrence. The circumstance of which I am about to speak is
the present experience of ourselves, to which I especially call the
attention of this Parliament, and not only this Parliament, but also the
whole of Christendom.
“Since 1853, when
Commodore Perry came to Japan as the ambassador of the President of the
United States of America, our country began to be better known by all
western nations, the new ports were widely opened and the prohibition of
the gospels was abolished, as it was before the Christian rebellion. By
the convention at Yeddo, now Tokio, in 1858, the treaty was stipulated
between America and Japan and also with the European powers. It was the
time when our country was yet under the feudal government; and on
account of our having been secluded for over two centuries since the
Christian rebellion of 1637, diplomacy was quite a new experience to the
feudal officers, who put their full confidence upon western nations, and
without any alteration, accepted every article of the treaty presented
from the foreign governments. According to the treaty we are in a very
disadvantageous situation; and amongst the others there are two
prominent articles, which deprive us of our rights and advantages. One
is the exterritoriality of western nations in Japan, by which all cases
in regard to right, whether of property or person, arising between the
subjects of the western nations in my country as well as between them
and the Japanese are subjected to the jurisdiction of the authorities of
the western nations. Another regards the tariff, which, with the
exception of 5 per cent ad valorem, we have no right to impose where it
might properly be done.
“It is also stipulated that either of the contracting
parties to this treaty, on giving one year’s previous notice to the
other, may demand a revision thereof on or after the 1st of July, 1872.
Therefore in 1871 our government demanded a revision, and since then we
have been constantly requesting
[D_page 220]
it, but
foreign governments have simply ignored our requests, making many
excuses. One part of the treaty between the United States of America
and Japan concerning the tariff was annulled, for which we thank with
sincere gratitude the kind-hearted American nation; but I am sorry to
say that, as no European power has followed in the wake of America in
this respect, our tariff right remains in the same condition as it was
before.
“We have no judicial power over the foreigners in Japan,
and as a natural consequence we are receiving injuries, legal and moral,
the accounts of which are seen constantly in our native newspapers. As
the western people live far from us they do not know the exact
circumstances. Probably they hear now and then the reports of the
missionaries and their friends in Japan. I do not deny that their
reports are true; but if any person wants to obtain any unmistakable
information in regard to his friend he ought to hear the opinions about
him from many sides. If you closely examine with your unbiased mind
what injuries we receive, you will be astonished. Among many kinds of
wrongs there are some which were utterly unknown before and entirely new
to us ‘heathen,’ none of whom would dare to speak of them even in
private conversation.
“One of the excuses offered by foreign nations is that
our country is not yet civilized. Is it the principle of civilized law
that the rights and profits of so-called uncivilized or the weaker
should be sacrificed? As I understand it, the spirit and the necessity
of law is to protect the rights and welfare of the weaker against the
aggression of the stronger; but I have never learned in my shallow
studies of law that the weaker should be sacrificed for the stronger.
Another kind of apology comes from the religious source, and the claim
is made that the Japanese are idolaters and heathen. Whether our people
are idolaters or not you will know at once if you will investigate our
religious views without prejudice from authentic Japanese sources.
“But admitting, for the sake of the argument, that we are
idolaters and heathen, is it Christian morality to trample upon the
rights and advantages of a non-christian nation, coloring all their
natural happiness with the dark stain of
[D_page 221]
injustice? I read in the Bible, ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy
right cheek, turn to him the other also’; but I cannot discover there
any passage which says, ‘Whosoever shall demand justice of thee smite
his right cheek, and when he turns smite the other also.’ Again, I read
in the Bible, ‘If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloak also;’ but I cannot discover there any
passage which says, ‘If thou shalt sue any man at the law, and take away
his coat, let him give thee his cloak also.’
“You send your missionaries to Japan, and they advise us to be moral and
believe Christianity. We like to be moral, we know that Christianity is
good and we are very thankful for this kindness. But at the same time
our people are rather perplexed and very much in doubt about this advice
when we think that the treaty stipulated in the time of feudalism, when
we were yet in our youth, is still clung to by the powerful nations of
Christendom; when we find that every year a good many western vessels
engaged in the seal fishery are smuggled into our seas; when legal cases
are always decided by the foreign authorities in Japan unfavorably to
us; when some years ago a Japanese was not allowed to enter a university
on the Pacific coast of America because of his being of a different
race; when a few months ago the school board of San Francisco enacted a
regulation that no Japanese should be allowed to enter the public
schools there; when last year the Japanese were driven out in wholesale
from one of the territories in the United States of America; when our
business men in San Francisco were compelled by some union not to employ
the Japanese assistants or laborers, but the Americans; when there are
some in the same city who speak on the platforms against those of us who
are already here; when there are many men who go in processions hoisting
lanterns marked ‘Jap must go;’ when the Japanese in the Hawaiian islands
are deprived of their suffrage; when we see some western people in Japan
who erect before the entrance in their houses a special post upon which
is the notice, ‘No Japanese is allowed to enter here,’ just like a board
upon which is written, ‘No dogs allowed;’ when we are in such a
situation, is it unreasonable—notwithstanding the kindness of the
western nations, from one point of view,
[D_page 222]
who send
their missionaries to us—for us intelligent ‘heathen’ to be embarrassed
and hesitate to swallow the sweet and warm liquid of the heaven of
Christianity? If such be the Christian ethics, well, we are perfectly
satisfied to be heathen.
“If any person should claim that there are many people in
Japan who speak and write against Christianity, I am not a hypocrite,
and I will frankly state that I was the first in my country who ever
publicly attacked Christianity—no, not real Christianity, but
false Christianity, the wrongs done toward us by the people of
Christendom. If any reprove the Japanese because they have had strong
anti-Christian societies, I will honestly declare that I was the first
in Japan who ever organized a society against Christianity—no, not
against real Christianity, but to protect ourselves from false
Christianity, and the injustice which we receive from the people
of Christendom. Do not think that I took such a stand on account of my
being a Buddhist, for this was my position many years before I entered
the Buddhist Temple. But at the same time I will proudly state that if
any one discussed the affinity of all religions before the public, under
the title of Synthetic Religion, it was I. I say this to you because I
do not wish to be understood as a bigoted Buddhist sectarian.
“Really there is no sectarian in my country. Our people well know what
abstract truth is in Christianity, and we, or at least I, do not care
about the names if I speak from the point of teaching. Whether Buddhism
is called Christianity or Christianity is named Buddhism, whether we are
called Confucianists or Shintoists, we are not particular; but we are
particular about the truth taught and its consistent application.
Whether Christ saves us or drives us into hell, whether Gautama Buddha
was a real person or there never was such a man, it is not a matter of
consideration to us, but the consistency of doctrine and conduct is the
point on which we put the greater importance. Therefore, unless the
inconsistency which we observe is renounced, and especially the unjust
treaty by which we are entailed is revised upon an equitable basis, our
people will never cast away their prejudices about Christianity in spite
of the eloquent orator who speaks its truth from the pulpit. We are
very often
[D_page 223]
called
‘barbarians,’ and I have heard and read that Japanese are stubborn and
cannot understand the truth of the Bible. I will admit that this is
true in some sense, for, though they admire the eloquence of the orator
and wonder at his courage, though they approve his logical argument, yet
they are very stubborn and will not join Christianity as long as they
think it is a western morality to preach one thing and practice
another...
“If any religion teaches injustice to humanity, I will
oppose it, as I ever have opposed it, with my blood and soul. I will be
the bitterest dissenter from Christianity, or I will be the warmest
admirer of its gospel. To the Promoters of the Parliament and the
ladies and gentlemen of the world who are assembled here, I pronounce
that your aim is the realization of the Religious Union, not nominally,
but practically. We, the forty million souls of Japan, standing firmly
and persistently upon the basis of international justice, await still
further manifestations as to the morality of Christianity.”
What a comment is this upon the causes of Christendom’s
failure to convert the world to truth and righteousness! And how it
calls for humiliation and repentance, rather than boasting!
A voice from the young men of the Orient was sounded by Herant M. Kiretchjian, of Constantinople as follows:
“Brethren from the Sunrising of all lands: I stand here to represent the young men of the
Orient, in particular from the land of the pyramids to the ice-fields of
Siberia, and in general from the shores of the Aegean to the waters of
Japan. But on this wonderful platform of the Parliament of Religions,
where I find myself with the sons of the Orient facing the American
public, my first thought is to tell you that you have unwittingly called
together a council of your creditors. We have not come to wind up your
affairs, but to unwind your hearts. Turn to your books, and see if our
claim is not right. We have given you science, philosophy, theology,
music and poetry, and have made history for you at tremendous expense.
And moreover, out of the light that shone upon our lands from heaven,
there have gone forth those who shall forever be your cloud of witnesses
and your
[D_page 224]
inspiration—saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs. And with that rich
capital you have amassed a stupendous fortune, so that your assets hide
away from your eyes your liabilities. We do not want to share your
wealth, but it is right that we should have our dividend, and, as usual,
it is a young man who presents the vouchers.
“You cannot pay this dividend with money. Your gold you
want yourselves. Your silver has fallen from grace. We want you to
give us a rich dividend in the full sympathy of your hearts. And, like
the artisan who, judging by their weight, throws into his crucible
nuggets of different shape and color, and, after fire and flux have done
their work, pours it out and behold, it flows pure gold, so, having
called together the children of men from the ends of the earth, and
having them here before you in the crucible of earnest thought and
honest search after truth, you find, when this Parliament is over, that
out of prejudice of race and dogma, and out of the variety of custom and
worship, there flows out before your eyes nothing but the pure gold of
humanity; and henceforth you think of us, not as strangers in foreign
lands, but as your brothers, in China, Japan and India, your sisters in
the Isles of Greece and the hills and valleys of Armenia, and you shall
have paid us such a dividend out of your hearts, and received yourselves
withal such a blessing, that this will be a Beulah land of prophecy for
future times, and send forth the echo of that sweet song that once was
heard in our land of ‘Peace on earth and good will toward men.’
“There has been so much spoken to you here, by men of wisdom and
experience of the religious life of the great east, that you would not
expect me to add anything thereto. Nor would I have stood here
presuming to give you any more information about the religions of the
world. But there is a new race of men that have risen up out of all the
great past whose influence will undoubtedly be a most important factor
in the work of humanity in the coming century. They are the result of
all the past, coming in contact with the new life of the present—I mean
the young men of the Orient; they who are preparing to take possession
of the earth with their brothers of the great west.
[D_page 225]
“I bring you a philosophy from the shores of the Bosphorus and a religion from the city of Constantine. All my firm
convictions and deductions that have grown up within me for years past
have, under the influence of this Parliament, been shaken to their
roots. But I find today those roots yet deeper in my heart, and the
branches reaching higher into the skies. I cannot presume to bring you
anything new, but if all the deductions appear to you to be logical from
premises which human intelligence can accept, then I feel confident that
you will give us credit for honest purpose and allow us the right as
intelligent beings to hold fast to that which I present before you.
“When the young men of today were children, they heard
and saw every day of their lives nothing but enmity and separation
between men of different religions and nationalities. I need not stop to
tell you of the influence of such a life upon the lives of young men,
who found themselves separated and in camps pitched for battle against
their brother men with whom they had to come in contact in the daily
avocations of life. And as the light of education and ideas of liberty
began to spread over the whole Orient with the latter part of this
century, this yoke became more galling upon the necks of the young men
of the Orient, and the burden too heavy to bear.
“Young men of all the nationalities I have mentioned, who
for the past thirty years have received their education in the
universities of Paris, Heidelberg, Berlin and other cities of Europe, as
well as the Imperial Lyceum of Constantinople, have been consciously or
unconsciously, passively or aggressively, weaving the fabric of their
religion, so that to the thousand young men, for whom their voice is an
oracle, it has come like a boon, and enlisted their heart and mind.
“They find their
brothers in large numbers in all the cities of the Orient where European
civilization has found the least entrance, and there is scarcely any
city that will not have felt their influence before the end of the
century. Their religion is the newest of all religions, and I should not
have brought it upon this platform were it not for the fact that it is
one of the most potent influences acting in the Orient
[D_page 226]
and with
which we religious young men of the east have to cope efficiently, if we
are to have the least influence with the peoples of our respective
lands.
“For, remember, there are men of intelligence, men of
excellent parts, men who, with all the young men of the Orient, have
proved that in all arts and sciences, in the marts of the civilized
world, in the armies of the nations and at the right hand of kings they
are the equal of any race of men, from the rising of the sun to the
setting thereof. They are men, moreover, for the most part, of the best
intentions and most sincere convictions, and, when you hear their
opinion of religion and think of the position they hold, you cannot, I
am sure, as members of the Religious Parliament, feel anything but the
greatest concern for them and the lands in which they dwell.
“I represent, personally, the religious young men of the
Orient; but let me, by proxy, for the young men of the newest religion,
speak before you to the apostles of all religions: ‘You come to us in
the name of religion to bring us what we already have. We believe that
man is sufficient unto himself, if, as you say, a perfect God has
created him. If you will let him alone, he will be all that he should
be. Educate him, train him, don’t bind him hand and foot, and he will
be a perfect man, worthy to be the brother of any other man. Nature has
sufficiently endowed man, and you should use all that is given you in
your intelligence before you trouble God to give you more. Moreover, no
one has found God. We have all the inspiration we want in sweet poetry
and enchanting music, and in the companionship of refined and cultured
men and women. If we are to listen to it, we would like Handel to tell
us of the Messiah, and if the heavens resound, it is enough to have
Beethoven’s interpretation.
“‘We have nothing
against you Christians, but as to all religions, we must say that you
have done the greatest possible harm to humanity by raising men against
men and nation against nation. And now, to make a bad thing worse, in
this day of superlative common sense you come to fill the minds of men
with impossible things and burden their brains with endless discussions
of a thousand sects. For there are many I have heard before you, and I
know how many could follow. We consider you the ones of all men to
[D_page 227]
be
avoided, for your philosophy and your doctrines are breeding pessimism
over the land.’
“Then, with a religious instinct and innate respect that
all orientals have, I have to say suddenly; ‘But, see here, we are not
infidels or atheists or skeptics. We simply have no time for such
things. We are full of the inspiration for the highest life, and desire
freedom for all young men of the world. We have a religion that unites
all men of all lands, and fills the earth with gladness. It supplies
every human need, and, therefore, we know that it is the true religion,
especially because it produces peace and the greatest harmony. So, we do
not want any of your ‘isms’ nor any other system or doctrine. We are
not materialists, socialists, rationalists or pessimists, and we are not
idealists. Our religion is the first that was, and it is also the
newest of the new—we are gentlemen. In the name of peace and humanity,
can you not let us alone? If you invite us again in the name of
religion, we shall have a previous engagement, and if you call again to
preach, we are not at home.’
“This is the Oriental young man, like the green bay tree.
And where one passes away, so that you do not find him in his place,
there are twenty to fill the gap. Believe me, I have not exaggerated;
for word for word, and ten times more than this, I have heard from
intelligent men of the army and navy, men in commerce and men of the
bars of justice in conversation and deep argument, in the streets of
Constantinople, in the boats of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, in
Roumania and Bulgaria, as well as in Paris and New York and the
Auditorium of Chicago, from Turk and Armenian, from Greek and Hebrew, as
well as Bulgarian and Servian, and I can tell you that this newest
substitute for religion, keeping the gates of commerce and literature,
science and law, through Europe and the Orient, is a most potent force
in shaping the destinies of the nations of the east, and has to be
accounted for intelligently in thinking of the future of religion, and
has to be met with an argument as powerful in the eyes of the young men
of the Orient, as that which science and literature have put in the
hands of the great army of the new gentlemen class.
“There is another
class of young men in the Orient, who call themselves the religious
young men, and who hold to
[D_page 228]
the
ancient faith of their fathers. Allow me to claim for these young men,
also, honesty of purpose, intelligence of mind, as well as a firm
persuasion. For them also I come to speak to you, and in speaking for
them I speak also for myself. You will naturally see that we have to be
from earliest days in contact with the New Religion; so let me call it
for convenience. We have to be in colleges and universities with those
same young men. We have to go hand in hand with them in all science and
history, literature, music and poetry, and naturally with them we share
in the firm belief in all scientific deduction and hold fast to every
principle of human liberty.
“First, all the young men of the Orient who have the deepest religious
convictions stand for the dignity of man. I regret that I should have
to commence here; but, out of the combined voices and arguments of
philosophies and theologies, there comes before us such an unavoidable
inference of an imperfect humanity that we have to come out before we
can speak on any religion for ourselves and say: ‘We believe that we are
men.’ For us it is a libel on humanity, and an impeachment of the God
who created man, to say that man is not sufficient within himself, and
that he needs religion to come and make him perfect.
[Note how the natural man accuses and excuses himself in the
same breath. Imperfection cannot be denied; but power to make ourselves
perfect in time is claimed, and thus the necessity for the “precious
blood” of the “sin-offering,” which God has provided, is ignored
by the heathen as it is now being denied by the
worldly-wise of Christendom.]
“It is libeling humanity to look upon this or that family of man and to
say that they show conceptions of goodness and truth and high ideals and
a life above simple animal desires, because they have had religious
teaching by this or that man, or a revelation from heaven. We believe
that if man is man he has it all in himself, just as he has all his
bodily capacities. Will you tell me that a cauliflower that I plant in
the fields grows up in beauty and perfection of its convolutions, and
that my brain, which the same God has created a hundred thousand times
more delicate and perfect,
[D_page 229]
cannot
develop its convolutions and do the work that God intended I should do
and have the highest conceptions that he intended I should have; that a
helpless pollywog will develop, and become a frog with perfect, elastic
limbs and a heaving chest, and that frogs will keep together in
contentment and croak in unity, and that men need religion and help from
outside in order that they may develop into the perfection of men in
body and soul and recognize the brotherhood of man and live upon God’s
earth in peace? I say it is an impeachment of God, who created man, to
promulgate and acquiesce in any such doctrine.
“Nor do we accept the unwarranted conclusions of science.
We have nothing to do with the monkeys. If they want to speak to us,
they will have to come up to us. There is a western spirit of
creating difficulties which we cannot understand. One of my
first experiences in the United States was taking part in a meeting of
young ladies and gentlemen in the City of Philadelphia. The subject of
the evening was whether animals had souls, and the cat came out
prominently. Very serious and erudite papers were read. But the
conclusion was that, not knowing just what a cat is and what a soul is,
they could not decide the matter, but it still was a serious matter
bearing upon religion. Now suppose an Armenian girl should ask her
mother if cats had souls. She would settle the question in parenthesis
and say, for example: ‘My sweet one, you must go down and see if the
water is boiling (What put the question into your head? Of course cats
have souls. Cats have cats’ souls and men have men’s souls). Now go
down.’ And the child would go down rejoicing in her humanity. And if my
Armenian lady should one day be confronted with the missing link of
which we hear so much, still her equanimity would remain unperturbed and
she would still glory in humanity by informing you that the missing link
had the soul of a missing link and man had the soul of a man.
“So far we come with young men of the gentlemen class,
hand in hand upon the common plane of humanity. But here is a corner
where we part, and take widely diverging paths. We cry, ‘Let us alone,
and we will expand and rise up to the height of our destiny;’ and,
behold, we find an invisible
[D_page 230]
power
that will not let us alone. We find that we can do almost everything in
the ways of science and art. But when it comes to following our
conception of that which is high and noble, that which is right and
necessary for our development, we are wanting in strength and power to
advance toward it. I put this in the simplest form, for I cannot
enlarge upon it here. But the fact for us is as real as the dignity of
man, that there is a power which diverts men and women from the path of
rectitude and honor, in which they know they should walk. You cannot
say it is inherent in man, for we feel it does not belong to us. And if
it did not belong to us, and it was the right conception of man to go
down into degradation and misery, rapacity, and the desire of crushing
down his fellow man, we would say, ‘Let him alone, and let him do that
which God meant that he should do.’
“So, briefly, I say to any one here who is preparing to
boil down his creed, put this in it before it reaches the boiling point:
‘And I believe in the devil, the arch-enemy of God, the accuser of God
to man.’ One devil for the whole universe? We care not. A legion of
demons besieging each soul? It matters not to us. We know this, that
there is a power outside of man which draws him aside mightily. And no
power on earth can resist it.
“And so, here comes our religion. If you have a religion
to bring to the young men of the Orient, it must come with a power that
will balance, yea, counterbalance the power of evil in the world. Then
will man be free to grow up and be that which God intended he should
be. We want God. We want the spirit of God. And the religion that
comes to us, in any name or form, must bring that, or else, for us, it
is no religion. And we believe in God, not the God of protoplasms, that
hides between molecules of matter, but God whose children we are.
“So we place as
the third item of our philosophy and protest the dignity of God. Is
chivalry dead? Has all conception of a high and noble life, of sterling
integrity, departed from the hearts of men, that we cannot aspire to
knighthood and princeship in the courts of our God? We know we are his
children, for we are doing his works and thinking his
[D_page 231]
thoughts. What we want to do is to be like him. Oh, is it true that I
can cross land and sea and reach the heart of my mother, and feel her
arms clasping me, but that I, a child of God, standing helpless in the
universe, against a power that I cannot overcome, cannot lift up my
hands to him, and cry to him, that I may have his spirit in my soul and
feel his everlasting arms supporting me in my weakness?
“And here comes the preacher from ancient days, and the
modern church, and tells us of one who did overcome the world, and that
he came down from above. We need not to be told that he came from
above, for no man born of woman did any such thing. But we are
persuaded that by the means of grace and the path which he shows us to
walk in, the spirit of God does come into the hearts of men, and that I
can feel it in my heart fighting with me against sin and strengthening
my heart to hold resolutely to that which I know to be right by the
divine in me.
“And so with a trembling hand but firm conviction, with
much sadness with humanity but joy of eternal triumph, I come with you
all to the golden gates of the twentieth century, where the elders of
the coming commonwealth of humanity are sitting to pass judgment upon
the religion that shall enter those gates to the support of the human
heart. I place there by the side of ancient Oriental Confucianism and
modern Theosophy, ancient Oriental Buddhism and modern Spiritualism, and
every faith of ancient days and modern materialism, rationalism and
idealism—there I place ancient Oriental Christianity with its Christ,
the power of God and the wisdom of God; and its cross, still radiant in
the love of God,
“‘Towering o’er the wrecks of
time.’”
This speaker, although not a delegated representative of the
Armenian Catholic Church, evidently presents matters from the standpoint
of the Armenian Christians, whom the Turks have lately persecuted in a
most barbarous manner. His address makes many excellent points; but it
must not be thought that he is a fair sample of the young men of the
[D_page 232]
Orient;
he is a long way in advance of those for whom he spoke. Neither does
his address afford a true view of Armenian Catholicism, with its prayers
for the dead; its worship of pictures and of saints and of the Virgin
Mary; its confessionals; and its blasphemous doctrine of the Mass;*
all closely resembling the devices of Antichrist. Those who sacrifice
the “abomination” of the Mass thereby show that they have little
knowledge and appreciation of the real cross and its one sacrifice,
“once for all.” The “Oriental Christianity” to which this young man
points us is not the one which we respect, nor after which we would
pattern: we go back to the Christianity declared and illustrated by
Christ, our Lord and Redeemer, and by his apostles, and as set forth in
the Scriptures: not Oriental, nor Occidental, nor Catholic (i.e.,
universal or general), but the power of God and the wisdom of God only
to “every one that” BELIEVETH unto righteousness. Rom.
1:16
The thoughtful observer cannot read the noble sentiments of
some of these who are feeling after God and aspiring toward
righteousness, without marking the contrast between their serious
sincerity and their noble purpose and effort to lift up before their
fellowmen the highest standards of righteousness they can discern, and
the compromising attitude of so many Christians who have been more
highly favored by birth and environment with a knowledge of the truth,
who are now anxious to sell it at the immense sacrifice of its noble
principles, merely to gain the present popular favor. To whom much has
been given of him much will be required by the Lord, who is now weighing
them all in the balances.
But while a few of the foreign representatives call out our
admiration and respect, the great majority of them were rejoicing
—————
*Vol. III, p. 98.
[D_page 233]
in their privilege of parading and recommending their
superstitions to such a representative assembly of the civilized and
enlightened nations. Buddhism, Shintoism, Brahminism, Confucianism and
Mohammendanism were repeatedly set forth with great boldness, and the
Mohammedan apostle had the audacity even to recommend polygamy. This
was almost too much for the audience, but their manifestations of
disapproval were quickly silenced by the chairman, Dr. Barrows, who
reminded them of the object of the Parliament—to give all a fair hearing
without dispute. So all had an abundant hearing and freely argued their
points before the already unsettled minds of thousands of professed
Christians, and as a result they have much reason to expect converts to
their religions here in America. The same privileges were also granted
to many of the antichristian movements, such as Christian Science,
Theosophy, Swedenborgianism, etc.
Closing Sentiments of the Great Parliament
The closing sentiments of the great Parliament show how
determined is this spirit of compromise on the part of Protestant
Christianity. So desperate are the straits to which the judgment of
this day has driven them, that they hail with the greatest enthusiasm
the least indication of a disposition toward union even on the part of
the very grossest forms of heathenism. We give the following brief
extracts:
Suamie Vive Kananda (priest of Bombay, India) said:
“Much has been
said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now
to venture my own theory; but if any one here hopes that this unity
would come by the triumph of any one of these religions and the
destruction of the others, to him I say, Brother, yours is an impossible
hope. Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindoo? God forbid. Do
I wish that the Hindoo or Buddhist would
[D_page 234]
become
Christian? God forbid. The Christian is not to become a Hindoo, or a
Buddhist to become a Christian. Learn to think without prejudice...If
theology and dogma stand in your way in the search for truth, put them
aside. Be earnest and work out your own salvation with diligence, and
the fruits of holiness will be yours.”
Vichand Ghandi (Jainist of India) said:
“If you will permit a ‘heathen’ to deliver his message of
peace and love, I shall only ask you to look at the multifarious ideas
presented to you in a liberal spirit and not with superstition and
bigotry...I entreat you to examine the various religious systems from
all standpoints.”
The Right Rev. Shabita,
high priest of the Shinto religion in Japan, said:
“What I wish to do is to assist you in carrying out the
plan of forming the universal brotherhood under the one roof of truth.
You know unity is power. Now I pray that the eight million
deities protecting the beautiful cherry tree country of Japan
may protect you and your government forever, and with this I bid you
good-bye.”
H. Dharmapala, of Ceylon, said:
“I, on behalf of four hundred and seventy-five millions
of my co-religionists, followers of the gentle Lord Buddha Gautama,
tender my affectionate regards to you...You have learned from your
brothers of the far East their presentation of the respective religious
systems they follow;... you have listened with commendable patience to
the teachings of the all-merciful Buddha through his humble followers,”
etc., etc.
Bishop Keane (Roman Catholic) said:
“When the invitation to this Parliament was sent to the
old Catholic church, people said, ‘Will she come?’ And the old Catholic
church said, ‘Who has as good a right to come to a Parliament of all the
religions of the world as the old Catholic universal church?’...Even if
she has to stand alone on that platform, she will stand on it. And the
old church has come, and is rejoiced to meet her fellow-men, her
fellow-believers, her fellow-lovers of every shade of humanity
[D_page 235]
and every
shade of creed...But will we not pray that there may have been planted
here a seed that will grow to union wide and perfect. If it were not
better for us to be one than to be divided, our Lord would not have
prayed that we might all be one as he and the Father are one. [But they
are not praying for such a union as exists between the Father and the
Son: the proposed union is a vastly different one.]”
The sentiments thus expressed found fullest acceptance in
the Parliament from Protestant representatives. Thus, for instance,
Rev. Dr. Candlin, missionary to China, said:
“The conventional idea of religion which obtains among
Christians the world over is that Christianity is true, while all other
religions are false; that Christianity is of God, while all other
religions are of the devil; or else, with a little spice of moderation,
that Christianity is a revelation from heaven, while other religions are
manufactures of men. You know better, and with clear
light and strong assurance can testify that there may be friendship
instead of antagonism between religion and religion, that so surely as
God is our common father, our hearts alike have yearned for him and our
souls in devoutest moods have caught whispers of grace dropped from his
throne. Then this is Pentecost, and behind is the conversion of
the world.”
Is it indeed? What resemblance is there, in this effort to
compromise truth and righteousness, for the fellowship of Antichrist and
Idolatry, to that faithful, prayerful assembly in Jerusalem, patiently
waiting for the power from on high? And what manifestation was there of
a similar outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon this motley company? If
the conversion of the world is to follow this, we beg leave to inquire,
To what is the world to be converted? Such a promise, even with all the
flourish of trumpets, does not satisfy the probing disposition of this
judgment hour.
Rev. Dr. Bristol, of the Methodist church, said:
“Infinite good and
only good will come from this Parliament. To all who have come from afar
we are profoundly
[D_page 236]
and
eternally indebted. Some of them represent civilization that was old
when Romulus was founding Rome; whose philosophies and songs were ripe
in wisdom and rich in rhythm before Homer sang his Iliads to the Greeks;
and they have enlarged our ideas of our common humanity.
They have brought to us fragrant flowers from eastern faiths, rich
gems from the old mines of great philosophies, and we are richer tonight
from their contributions of thought, and particularly from our contact
with them in spirit. [What a confession!]
“Never was there such a bright and hopeful day for our
common humanity along the lines of tolerance and universal brotherhood.
And we shall find that by the words that these visitors have brought to
us, and by the influence they have exerted, they will be richly rewarded
in the consciousness of having contributed to the mighty movement which
holds in itself the promise of one faith, one Lord, one Father, one
brotherhood.
“The blessings of our God and our Father be with you,
brethren from the east; the blessings of our Savior, our
elder brother, the teacher of the brotherhood of man, be with you and
your peoples forever.”
Rev. Augusta Chapin said:
“We who welcomed now speed the parting guests. We
are glad you came, O wise men of the East. With your wise words, your
large toleration and your gentle ways we have been glad to sit at your
feet and learn of you in these things. We are glad to have seen you
face to face, and we shall count you henceforth more than ever our
friends and coworkers in the great things of religion.
“And we are glad now that you are going to your far-away
homes, to tell the story of all that has been said and done here in this
great Parliament, and that you will thus bring the Orient into nearer
relations with the Occident, and make plain the sympathy which exists
among all religions. We are glad for the words that have been spoken by
the wise men and women of the west, who have come and have given us
their grains of gold after the washing. What I said in the beginning I
will repeat now at the ending of this Parliament: It has been the
greatest gathering in the name of religion ever held on the face of the
earth.”
[D_page 237]
Rev.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones said:
“I bid you, the parting guests, the godspeed that comes
out of a soul that is glad to recognize its kinship with all lands and
with all religions; and when you go, you go leaving behind you in our
hearts not only more hospitable thoughts for the faiths you represent,
but also warm and loving ties that bind you into the union that will be
our joy and our life forevermore.”
Dr. Barrows (chairman) said:
“Our hopes have been more than realized.
The sentiment which has inspired this Parliament has held us together.
The principles in accord with which this historic convention has
proceeded have been put to the test, and even strained at times, but
they have not been inadequate. Toleration, brotherly kindness, trust in
each other’s sincerity, a candid and earnest seeking after the unities
of religion, the honest purpose of each to set forth his own faith
without compromise and without unfriendly criticism—these principles,
thanks to your loyalty and courage, have not been found wanting.
“Men of Asia and Europe, we have been made glad by your
coming, and have been made wiser. I am happy that you have enjoyed our
hospitalities,” etc.
The remarks of President Bonney were very similar; and then,
with a prayer by a Jewish rabbi and a benediction by a Roman Catholic
bishop, the great Parliament came to a close; and five thousand voices
joined in repeating the angel’s message of “Peace on earth and good will
toward men.”
The Outlook
But Oh, at what sacrifice of principle, of truth, and of
loyalty to God were the foregoing announcements made to the world; and
that, too, on the very threshold of a divinely predicted time of trouble
such as never was since there was a nation; a trouble which all thinking
people begin to realize, and the crisis and outcome of which they
greatly fear. And it is this fear that is driving this heterogeneous
mass
[D_page 238]
together
for mutual protection and cooperation. It is merely a stroke of human
policy to try to quiet the fears of the church by crying Peace! Peace!
when there is no peace. (Jer. 6:14) This cry of peace issuing from the
church representatively is characterized by the same ludicrous ring of
insincerity that issued from the nations representatively at the great
Kiel celebration noted in the previous chapter. While the civil powers
thus proclaimed peace with the tremendous roar of cannon, the
ecclesiastical powers proclaim it with a great, bold, boastful
compromise of truth and righteousness. The time is coming when the Lord
himself will speak peace unto the nations (Zech. 9:10); but it will not
be until he has first made known his presence in the whirlwind of
revolution and in the storm of trouble. Nah. 1:3
Viewed from its own standpoint, the Parliament was
pronounced a grand success, and the thoughtless, always charmed with
noise and glitter and show, responded, Amen! They foolishly imagine
that the whole unregenerate world is to be gathered into one universal
bond of religious unity and brotherhood, and yet all are to think and
act and grope along in the darkness of ignorance and superstition and to
walk in the wicked ways above referred to, just as they have always
done, refusing “the light that shines in the face of Jesus Christ,”
which is the only true light. (2 Cor. 4:6; John 1:9; 3:19) And
Christians are rejoicing in this prospect, and hailing such an imaginary
event as the most glorious event in history.
But while the general impression created by the great
Parliament was that it was the first step, and a long one, toward a
realization of the angel’s message at the birth of Christ, of peace on
earth and good will toward men, rightly viewed it was another
manifestation of the faithlessness of Christendom. Surely, as saith the
prophet, “The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the
understanding of their
[D_page 239]
prudent
men shall be hid.” (Isa. 29:14) And again we hear him say, “Associate
yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear,
all ye of far countries: gird [bind] yourselves [together] and ye shall
be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to
naught; speak the word [for Unity] and it shall not stand.” Isa. 8:9,10
With the Psalmist we would again propound the question, “Why
do the people imagine a vain thing? [Why do they cry
Peace! Peace! when there is no peace?] The kings of the earth [civil
and ecclesiastical] set themselves, and the rulers take counsel
together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, Let us
break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall
have them in derision. Then shall he speak to them in his wrath, and
vex them in his sore displeasure.” Psa. 2:1-5
When God’s chosen people—spiritual Israel now, like fleshly
Israel anciently—abandon his Word and his leading, and seek to ally
themselves with the nations that know not God, and to blend divine truth
with the world’s philosophies, they take such steps at a peril which
they do not realize; and they would do well indeed to mark God’s
recompenses to his ancient people, and take warning.
Several very unfavorable results of the Parliament are
clearly discernible:
(1) It introduced to the already unsettled mind of
Christians the various heathen philosophies, and that in their most
favorable aspects. Afterwards we learned that one of the delegates to
the Parliament from India—Mr. Virchandi R. Gandhi, of Bombay, secretary
of Jainas Society—had returned to America to propagate his views, making
Chicago his headquarters. We quote the following published description
of his purposes:
[D_page 240]
“Mr. Gandhi does not come to make proselytes. The rule
of the Jainist faith forbids that; but he comes to found a school of
Oriental philosophy, whose headquarters will be in Chicago, with
branches in Cleveland, Washington, New York, Rochester and other
cities. He does not come as a missionary to convert Americans to any
form of Hindooism. According to his own idea, ‘the true idea of Hindoo
worship is not a propagandism, but a spirit—a universal spirit of love
and power, and answerable to the realization of brotherhood, not
brotherhood of man alone, but of all living things, which by the lips of
all nations is indeed sought, but by the practice of the world is yet
ignored.’ Roughly, these are the tenets of his creed and the platform
upon which he stands, not beseeching Americans to join him, but willing
to have their co-operation.”
Doubtless the impression made upon many minds is that there
are no religious certainties. Such a result was even hinted at by one
of the delegates from Syria—Christophore Jibara, who said:
“My Brothers and Sisters in the worship of God: All the
religions now in this general and religious congress are parallel
to each other in the sight of the whole world. Every one of
these religions has supporters who realize and prefer their own to other
religions, and they might bring some arguments or reasons to convince
others of the value and truth of their own form of religion. From such
discussions a change may come; perhaps even doubts about all
religions; or a supposition that all of them are identical
faiths. And, therefore, the esteem of every religion may fall or
decrease; doubt may be produced against all the inspired books, or a
general neglect may happen, and no one remain to hold a certain religion,
and many may entirely neglect the duties of religion, for the reason of
restlessness in their hearts and the opinion which prevails in one form
of religion, just as is going on among many millions in Europe and
America. Therefore, I think that a committee should be selected from the
great religions, to investigate the dogmas and to make a full and
perfect comparison, approving the true one, and announcing it to the
people.”
[D_page 241]
(2) It made special friendship between “Babylon the great,
the mother of harlots,” the Church of Rome, and her many daughters, the
various Protestant sects, who glory in their shame, and are proud to own
the disreputable relationship.
(3) It took a long step, which will be followed by others
already proposed, towards the affiliation, in some sense, of all
religions—toward a yet closer union of the church (nominal) and the
world. It was publicly announced by the President at the last session
of the Parliament that a “proclamation of fraternity would be issued to
promote the continuation in all parts of the world of the great work in
which the congresses of 1893 had been engaged.”
(4) It practically said to the heathen that there is really
no necessity for Christian missions; that Christians are themselves
uncertain of their religion; that their own religions are good enough,
if followed sincerely; and that Christianity, to say the least, can only
be received with a large measure of incredulity. It is a cause of
astonishment to note how the heathen representatives have measured
nominal Christianity; how clearly they have made distinctions between
the Christianity of “Christendom” and the Christianity of the Bible; and
how keenly their rebukes were often administered.
(5) It said to distracted Christendom, Peace! Peace! when
there is no peace, instead of sounding an alarm, as saith the Prophet
(Joel 2:1): “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy
mountain;...for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand,” and
calling upon all to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God.
(6) It was evidently a measure of policy, originating in the
fears of the leaders in Christendom, as they discerned the approaching
trouble of this day of the Lord; and the movement had its beginning in
the distracted and perplexed
[D_page 242]
Presbyterian church. This cry of Peace! Peace! in the very midst of the
rising storm reminds us of the prophecy—“When they shall say, Peace and
safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” 1 Thess. 5:3
Let not the children of God be deluded by Babylon’s false
prognostications. In God only can we find a safe retreat. (Psa. 91)
Let us rally closer round the cross of Christ, which is our only hope.
Let the universal brotherhood of false religions and apostate
Christianity prove the value of that relationship; but let us recognize
only the brotherhood in Christ—the brotherhood of all who trust in
Christ alone for salvation, through faith in his precious blood. Other
men are not children of God, and will not be until they come unto him by
faith in Christ as their Redeemer, their substitute. They are the
“children of wrath,” even as were we before we came into Christ (Eph.
2:3); and some are the “children of the Wicked One,” whose works they
do. When God condemned Adam and his posterity to death, on account of
sin, he no longer owned and treated them as sons. And only as men come
into Christ by faith in his precious blood are they reinstated in that
blessed relationship to God. Consequently, if we are no longer the
children of wrath, but are owned of God as his sons through Christ,
other men, not so recognized of God, are not in any sense our brethren.
Let all the children of light watch and be sober (1 Thess. 5:5,6); let
the soldiers of the cross be valiant for the truth, and receive no other
gospel, though it be declared by an angel from heaven (Gal. 1:8); and
let them negotiate no union with any class save the consecrated and
faithful followers of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world.”
While the church nominal is thus willing and eager to
compromise and unite with all the heathen religions of the world in a
great “world religion” which would perpetuate all
[D_page 243]
their
false doctrines and evil practices, let us hear some admissions and
statements of facts from others who are not so infatuated with the idea
of religious unity, facts which show the deplorable condition of the
world, the baneful results of the false religions, and the utter
hopelessness of ever converting the world through the instrumentality of
the church in her present condition. Not until the church—not the
false, but the true church, whose names are written in heaven, the loyal
and faithful consecrated ones begotten and led of the spirit of God—is
endued with power from on high, not until she has reached her full
development and has been exalted with Christ in the Millennial Kingdom,
will she be able to accomplish the world’s conversion to God and his
righteousness.
From a number of the Missionary Review, of a
few years ago, we have the following acknowledgment of the failure of
the church in the work of the world’s conversion:
“One thousand million souls, two-thirds of the human
race—heathen, pagan, Moslem—most of them have yet to see a Bible or hear
the gospel message. To these thousand millions, less than 10,000
Protestant missionaries, men and women all included, are now sent out by
the churches of Christendom. Thibet, almost all of Central Asia,
Afghanistan, Beloochistan, nearly all of Arabia, the greater portion of
the Soudan, Abyssinia and the Philippine Islands are without a
missionary. Large districts of Western China and Eastern and Central
Congo Free State, large portions of South America and many of the
islands of the sea are almost or altogether unoccupied.”
A little pamphlet entitled, “A Century of Protestant
Missions,” by Rev. James Johnston, F.S.S., gives the following figures,
which, it has been remarked are “sufficiently appalling to electrify
Christendom.” The import of the pamphlet is that (1) Protestantism has
gained but 3,000,000 converts from heathenism during the last hundred
[D_page 244]
years,
whilst the number of heathen has increased during that period by at
least 200,000,000. (2) The swift advance of heathenism is not due
merely to the natural growth of heathen populations, but to the fact
that the adherents of Brahma, Buddha and Mohammed can boast of more
numerous converts to their creeds than can the Protestant Christian
churches. Thus for every convert to Christianity which Hindooism has
lost, it has gained a thousand from the aboriginal tribes of India which
it is constantly absorbing. Buddhism is making marked progress among the
tribes of the Northern dependencies of China—even following the Chinese
emigrants and planting its strange temples on the soil of Australia and
America. But the most extraordinary progress of all has been achieved
by Mohammedanism. In certain parts of Africa it is spreading with
amazing swiftness. Also, in a less but rapid degree, in India and the
Archipelago. These are facts which the gentleman feels obliged to
admit, but he endeavors to silence criticism by affirming that the
church can yet accomplish the world’s conversion. He attempts to
establish that the Protestant churches have ample resources, both of
money and of men, to change the whole aspect of affairs, and to
evangelize the world; and the Methodist Times, quoting the
above, expressed the same opinion, boastfully adding:
“No man need be stunned by the awful facts we have now
briefly named...God has so well ordered the course of events during the
last hundred years that we are well able to conquer the
whole heathen world in the name of the Lord. What we have done proves
what we might have done if we had provided ourselves with the two
human essentials—a daring policy and plenty of money.”
Says another theorizer: “If we had a tenth of the
income of church members it would fully suffice for all gospel
work at home and abroad. Or if we had, for foreign work, a tenth
of
[D_page 245]
their annual savings, after all home expenses are paid,
we could put 12,000 missionaries in the field at once.”
Yes, money is the one thing considered needful. If the
nominal church could only bring about a sufficiency of the spirit of
self-denial to secure a tenth of the income of church members, or even a
tenth of their annual savings, the salvation of the world would begin to
look more hopeful to them. But this is one of the most hopeless features
of the delusive hope. It would be an easier matter to half convert the
heathen to a profession of Christianity than to overcome to this extent
the spirit of the world in the churches.
But if the above twelve thousand missionaries could be
placed in the foreign field at once, would they be more successful than
their brethren in this favored land? Hear the pertinent confession of
the late well known Protestant clergyman, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage. He
said, as reported in The Christian Standard:
“Oh! we have magnificent church machinery in this
country; we have sixty thousand ministers; we have costly music; we have
great Sunday-schools; and yet I give you the appalling statistic that in
the last twenty-five years the churches in this country have averaged
less than two conversions a year each.
“There has been an average of four or five deaths in the
churches. How soon, at that rate, will this world be brought to God?
We gain two; we lose four. Eternal God! what will this come to? I tell
you plainly that while here and there a regiment of the Christian
soldiery is advancing, the church is falling back for the most part to
ghastly Bull Run defeat.”
Some time ago Canon Taylor of the English church discussed
the question, Are Christian Missions a Failure? and the paper was read
before the English Church Congress. In it he took the ground that the
Mohammedan religion is not only equal to Christianity in some respects,
but is far better
[D_page 246]
suited to
the needs and capacities of many peoples in Asia and Africa; that at its
present rate of progress Christianity can never hope to overtake
heathenism. Estimating the excess of births over deaths in Asia and
Africa as 11,000,000 a year, and the annual increase of Christians as
60,000, it would take the missionary societies 183 years to overtake one
year’s increase in the heathen population. He said:
“To extort from
Sunday school children their hoarded pence, for the ostensible object of
converting ‘the poor heathen,’ and to spend nearly
£12,000 a year in fruitless
missions to lands where there are no heathen, seems to me to be almost a
crime; the crime of obtaining money under false pretenses.”
In giving his opinion of the cause of missionary failures:
that it is Sectarianism, together with lack of full consecration to the
work on the part of the missionaries, who endeavor to live as princes
surrounded by more than European luxuries, Mr. Taylor referred to Dr. Legge, a missionary of thirty-four years standing, saying:
“He thinks we shall fail to make converts so long as
Christianity presents itself infected with the bitter internal
animosities of Christian sects, and associated in the minds of the
natives with the drunkenness, the profligacy, and the gigantic social
evil conspicuous among Christian nations. Bishop Steere thought that the
two greatest hindrances to success were the squabbles among the
missionaries themselves, and the rivalry of the societies.”
But while Canon Taylor and many others whose sentiments were
voiced in the great Religious Parliament would silence criticism by
telling us that the heathen religions are good enough, and better suited
to the needs of the respective countries than Christianity would be, we
have a different suggestion from the report of the late Bishop Foster,
of the Methodist Episcopal church, who, after an extended tour of the
world years ago, gave the following picture of the world’s sad condition
in the darkness of heathenism. He said:
[D_page 247]
“Call to your aid all the images of poverty and
degradation you have ever seen in solitary places of the extremest
wretchedness—those sad cases which haunted you with horror after you had
passed from them, those dreary abodes of filth and gaunt squalor: crowd
them into one picture, unrelieved by a single shade of tempered darkness
or colored light, and hang it over one-half the globe; it will still
fail to equal the reality. You must put into it the dreary prospect of
hopeless continuance; you must take out of it all hope, all aspiration
even. The conspicuous feature of heathenism is poverty. You have never
seen poverty. It is a word the meaning of which you do not know. What
you call poverty is wealth, luxury. Think of it not as occasional, not
as in purlieus, not as exceptional in places of deeper misery, but as
universal, continent wide. Put into it hunger nakedness, bestiality;
take out of it expectation of something better tomorrow; fill Africa
with it, fill Asia with it; crowd the vision with men, women and
children in multitude more than twenty times the population of all your
great cities, towns and villages and rural districts, twenty for every
one in all your states and territories—the picture then fails to reach
the reality.
“Put now, into the
picture the moral shading of no God, no hope; think of these miserable
millions, living like beasts in this world and anticipating nothing
better for the world to come. Put into the picture the remembrance that
they are beings who have the same humanity that we have, and consider
that there are no hearts among all these millions that do not have human
cravings, and that might not be purified and ennobled; that these lands,
under the doom of such wretchedness, might equal, and many of them even
surpass, the land in which we dwell, had they what we could give them.
Paint a starless sky, hang your picture with night, drape the mountains
with long, far-reaching vistas of darkness, hang the curtains deep along
every shore and landscape, darken all the past, let the future be draped
in deeper and yet deeper night, fill the awful gloom with hungry,
sad-faced men and sorrow-driven women and hopeless children: this is the
heathen world—the people seen in vision by the ancient prophet, ‘who sit
in the region
[D_page 248]
and
shadow of death;’ to whom no light has yet come, sitting there still,
through the long, long night, waiting and watching for the morning.
“A thousand millions in the region and shadow of death;
the same region where their fathers lived twenty-five hundred years ago,
waiting still, passing on through life in poverty so extreme that they
are not able to provide for their merely brute wants; millions of them
subsisting on roots and herbs and the precarious supply that nature, unsubdued by reason, may furnish. Those of them living under forms of
government and semi-civilization, which in a manner, regulate property
and enforce industry, after their tyrants have robbed them of their
earnings, do not average for the subsistence of themselves and their
children three cents a day, or its equivalent—not enough to subsist an
animal; multitudes of them not half fed, not half clothed, living in
pens and styes not fit for swine, with no provision of any kind for
their human wants. Ground down by the tyranny of brute force until all
the distinctive traces of humanity are effaced from them save the
upright form and the uneradicable dumb and blind yearnings after, they
know not what—these are the heathen, men and women, our brothers and
sisters.
“The grim and ghastly shadows of the picture would freeze
us, were they not cast in the perspective, and the sheen and gilding
thrown over it by imagination. From our standpoint of comfortable
indifference they are wholly concealed. They are too far away, and we
are too much taken up with our pleasures to see them or even think of
them. They do not emerge in the picture; and if we do think of them at
all, it is in the light, not of reality, but of misleading fancy. We
see the great cities and the magnificence of the Mikadoes and Rajahs,
and the pomp of courts, and voluptuous beauty of the landscapes—all of
them transfigured by imagination and the deceptive glare in which works
of travel invest them. We are enchanted with the vision. If we would
look deeper into the question of the homes of the people, and their
religious condition, again we are attracted by the great temples and the
fancy sketches of travelers of some picturesque and inviting domestic
scene. We
[D_page 249]
are
comforted. The heathen world is not in so bad a case, after all, we
say. They have their religion; they have their pleasures. This is the
relieving thought with which we contemplate the world. Oh, fatal
delusion! The real picture lies in shadow. The miserable, groping,
sinful millions, without God and without hope, homeless, imbruted,
friendless, born to a heritage of rayless night, and doomed to live and
die in the starless gloom—these are not seen. They are there, gliding
about in these death shades, gaunt and hungry and naked and hopeless,
near brute beasts; they are not in small numbers, crouching in the
by-ways, and hiding themselves, as unfortunates, from their fellows; but
they are in millions upon millions, filling all those fancy painted
lands, and crowding the streets and avenues of their magnificent cities,
and appalling us, if we could but see them, by their multitude. There
their fathers lived and died without hope. There they grind out their
miserable lives. There their children are born to the same thing.
There, living or dying, no man cares for their souls.
“That is the non-Christian world. It has great cities,
great temples, magnificent mausoleums, a few pampered tyrants who wrap
themselves in trappings of gold, but the glare of its shrines and
thrones falls upon a background of ebon night, in which the millions
crouch in fear and hunger and want. I have seen them, in their sad
homes and diabolical orgies, from the Bosphorus to the Ganges, in their
temples and at their feasts, crouching and bowing before grim idols and
stone images and monkey gods; seen them drifting through the streets and
along the highways; seen their rayless, hopeless, hungry faces, and
never can the image be effaced from memory.
“I think we should agree that there is no hope for man in
the non-Christian world. It has nothing to give us, not a ray, not a
crumb. It hangs as a ponderous weight about the neck of the race,
sinking it deeper and deeper into night, death. Its very breath is
contagious. Its touch is death. Its presence appalls us as some
gigantic specter from the realm of night, towering and swaying through
the centuries and darkening all ages.
“I raise no question about whether these countless
millions
[D_page 250]
can be
saved in the world to come. I do not affirm that giving them the gospel
will improve their prospects or at all increase their chance in that
direction. Possibly as many of them will be saved without the gospel as
with it. That question does not come into the problem which I am
discussing—the outlook of the world—by which I mean the outlook for
time, not for eternity. If the awful thought could once take possession
of my mind that the whole world must, of necessity, be lost forever,
simply because they are heathen, I would not send them a Gospel which
reveals such a God. That grim thought alone would shut out all hope for
the world, and make eternity itself a dungeon, no difference who might
be saved. For how could any rational creature enjoy even a heaven with
a God whose government could permit such a stain of shame and dishonor,
of cruelty and injustice? Convince men that there is a God at the head
of the universe, who, without fault of theirs, or any chance of escape,
will damn the dead, the living and the yet-to-live millions of
heathenism, and at the same time turn earth into a gigantic terror,
where ghastly horrors will admit of no relief, and you make it forever
impossible that he should be worshiped by any but devils, and by them
only because he becomes their chief.”
The Bishop also mentioned the fact that, while the
population of the world is estimated at 1,450,000,000, nearly
1,100,000,000 are non-Christian; and that many (yes, nearly all) of the
nominally Christian are either heathen or antichristian. Then in view
of the church’s failure to convert the world in eighteen hundred years,
and of the hopelessness of the task, he attempted to relieve the church
of the responsibility she has assumed by suggesting that these heathen
millions must be saved without faith in Christ. And by the way of
relieving God from the responsibility of the present distress among men,
he said, “God is doing the best he can with the power he has got.”
The Church Times some years ago published an
article by a Maori, of which the following extracts are very suggestive
of the cause of the church’s failure to enlighten the world to
[D_page 251]
any
considerable degree. The letter originally appeared in a New Zealand
newspaper, and runs as follows:
“You published a few days ago the account of what took
place at a meeting of Maoris, convened by the Bishop of Christ church.
I was present at the meeting, and wish you to give me an opportunity of
answering one of the questions put to us by the Bishop, namely: ‘Why is
the fire of Christian faith so low among the Maori people in my
diocese?’ I will tell you what I believe is the reason. We Maoris are
confused and bewildered in our minds by the extraordinary
way in which you Europeans treat your religion. Nobody amongst you
seems to be sure whether it means anything or nothing. At the bidding of
the early missionaries we substituted what they told us was a true
religion for that of our forefathers, which they called false. We
accepted the Book containing the history and precepts of the ‘True
Religion’ as being really the Word of God binding upon us, his
creatures. We offered daily, morning and evening, worship to the Creator
in every pah and village throughout New Zealand. We kept the seventh day
holy, abstaining from every kind of work out of respect to the divine
command, and for the same reason abolished slavery and polygamy, though
by doing so we completely disorganized our social system and reduced our
gentry to poverty and inflicted much pain on those who were forced to
sever some of the tenderest ties of human relationship. Just when we
were beginning to train up our children to know and to obey God as
manifested in Jesus Christ, Europeans came in great numbers to this
country. They visited our villages and appeared very friendly, but we
noticed that they did not pay the same respect to the Bible as we
novices did. The Roman Catholics told us they alone knew the correct
interpretation, and that unless we joined them our souls would be lost.
The Baptists followed, who ridiculed our presenting our children to
Christ in baptism, and told us that as we had not been immersed we were
not baptized Christians at all. Then came the Presbyterians, who said
the office of a Bishop was unscriptural, and that in submitting to be
confirmed by Bishop Selwyn we had gone through a meaningless ceremony.
Lastly came the Plymouth Brethren, who told us
[D_page 252]
that
Christ never instituted a visible church or ministry at all, but that
everybody ought to be his own minister and make his own creed.
“Besides the confusion in our minds caused by the godless
example of the majority of Europeans, and the contradictory teaching
given by ministers of religion, we were puzzled by the behavior of the
government, which, while professing to be bound by the moral law
contained in the Bible, did not hesitate, when we became powerless, to
break solemn promises made to us when we were more numerous and strong
than the Europeans. Great was our surprise when the Parliament,
composed not of ignorant, low-born men, but of European gentlemen, and
professing Christians, put the Bible out of the schools, and, while
directing the teachers to diligently instruct the children of New
Zealand in all kinds of knowledge, told them on no account to teach them
anything about the Christian religion, anything about God and his laws.
My heathen master taught me to fear and reverence the Unseen Powers, and
my parents taught me to order every action of my life in obedience to
the Atuas, who would punish me if I offended them. But my children are
not taught now in the schools of this Christian country to reverence any
being above a policeman, or to fear any judge of their actions above a
Resident Magistrate.
“I think, when the Bishop of Christ church asked us the
other day the question I have already referred to, we might fairly have
asked him to tell us first why the fire of faith burns so low among his
own people. We might have quoted apt words from that Book which English
people want everyone but themselves to take for their rule of life, and
reverence as the Word of the living God: ‘Physician, heal thyself.’
“Can ignorant Maoris be blamed for lukewarmness in the
service of God, whose existence one of his ordained ministers tells them
no man in Christendom can prove? I sometimes think, sir, that my
children would have had a better chance of developing into honorable men
and women, and would have had a better prospect of happiness when the
time comes for them to enter the unseen world and meet their Maker, if,
like the first Maori king (Potatu), I had refused
[D_page 253]
to make an open profession of
your religion till, as he said: ‘You had settled among yourselves what
religion really is.’ Better, I think, the real belief in the unseen
spiritual world which sustained my forefathers than the make-believe
which the European people have asked us to substitute for it.
Yours, etc.,
“TANGATA MAORI.”
The following extract from an article in the North
American Review by Wong Chin Foo, an educated Chinaman, a
graduate of one of our New England colleges, gives similarly suggestive
reasons for preferring the religion of his fathers to Christianity.
Wong Chin Foo said:
“Born and raised a heathen, I learned and practiced its
moral and religious code; and acting thereupon I was useful to myself
and many others. My conscience was clear, and my hopes as to future
life were undimmed by distracting doubt. But, when about seventeen, I
was transferred to the midst of your showy Christian civilization, and
at this impressible period of life Christianity presented itself to me
at first under its most alluring aspects; kind Christian friends became
particularly solicitious for my material and religious welfare, and I
was only too willing to know the truth. Then I was persuaded to devote
my life to the cause of Christian missions. But before entering this
high mission, the Christian doctrine I would teach had to be learned,
and here on the threshold I was bewildered by the multiplicity of
Christian sects, each one claiming a monopoly of the only and narrow
road to heaven.
“I looked into
Presbyterianism only to retreat shudderingly from a belief in a
merciless God who had long foreordained most of the helpless human race
to an eternal hell. To preach such a doctrine to intelligent heathen
would only raise in their minds doubts of my sanity, if they did not
believe I was lying. Then I dipped into Baptist doctrines, but found so
many sects therein of different ‘shells,’ warring over the merits of
cold-water initiation and the method and time of using it, that I became
disgusted with such trivialities; and the question of close communion or
not only impressed me that some were very stingy and exclusive with
[D_page 254]
their bit
of bread and wine, and others a little less so. Methodism struck me as
a thunder-and-lightning religion—all profession and noise. You struck
it, or it struck you, like a spasm—and so you ‘experienced’ religion.
The Congregationalists deterred me with their starchiness and
self-conscious true-goodness, and their desire for only high-toned
affiliates. Unitarianism seemed all doubt, doubting even itself. A
number of other Protestant sects based on some novelty or
eccentricity—like Quakerism—I found not worth a serious study by the
non-Christian. But on one point this mass of Protestant dissension
cordially agreed, and that was in a united hatred of Catholicism, the
older form of Christianity. And Catholicism returned with interest this
animosity. It haughtily declared itself the only true church, outside
of which there was no salvation—for Protestants especially; that its
chief prelate was the personal representative of God on earth; and that
he was infallible. Here was religious unity, power and authority with a
vengeance. But, in chorus, my solicitous Protestant friends besought me
not to touch Catholicism, declaring it was worse than heathenism—in
which I agreed; but the same line of argument also convinced me that
Protestantism stood in the same category. In fact, the more I studied
Christianity in its various phases, and listened to the animadversions
of one sect upon another, the more it seemed to me ‘sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals.’
“Call us heathen if you will, the Chinese are still
superior in social administration and social order. Among four hundred
millions of Chinese there are fewer murders and robberies in a year than
there were in New York State. True, China supports a luxurious monarch
whose every whim must be gratified; yet, withal, its people are the most
lightly taxed in the world, having nothing to pay but from tilled soil,
rice and salt; and yet she has not a single dollar of national debt...
“Christians are
continually fussing about religion; they build great churches and make
long prayers, and yet there is more wickedness in the neighborhood of a
single church district of one thousand people in New York, than among
one million heathen, churchless and unsermonized. Christian
[D_page 255]
talk is
long and loud about how to be good and to act charitably. It is all
charity and no fraternity—‘There, dog, take your crust and be
thankful!’ And is it, therefore, any wonder that there is more
heart-breaking and suicides in the single state of New York in a year
than in all China?
“The difference between the heathen and the Christian is
that the heathen does good for the sake of doing good. With the
Christian, what little good he does he does it for immediate honor and
for future reward; he lends to the Lord and wants compound interest. In
fact, the Christian is the worthy heir of his religious ancestors. The
heathen does much and says little about it, the Christian does little
good, but when he does he wants it in the papers and on his tombstone.
Love men for the good they do you is a practical Christian idea, not for
the good you should do them as a matter of human duty. So Christians
love the heathen; yes, the heathen’s possessions; and in proportion to
these the Christian’s love grows in intensity. When the English wanted
the Chinaman’s gold and trade, they said they wanted ‘to open China for
their missionaries.’ And opium was the chief, in fact the only,
missionary they looked after when they forced the ports open. And this
infamous Christian introduction among Chinamen has done more injury,
social and moral, in China, than all the humanitarian agencies of
Christianity could remedy in two hundred years. And on you,
Christians, and on your greed of gold, we lay the burden of the crime
resulting; of tens of millions of honest, useful men and women
sent thereby to premature death after a short, miserable life, besides
the physical and moral prostration it entails even where it does not
prematurely kill! And this great national curse was thrust on us at the
point of Christian bayonets. And you wonder why we are heathen? The
only positive point Christians have impressed on heathenism is that they
would sacrifice religion, honor, principle, as they do life, for—gold.
And they sanctimoniously tell the poor heathen: ‘You must save your soul
by believing as we do!’...
“‘Do unto others
as you wish they would do unto you,’ or ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself,’ is the great divine law which Christians and heathen alike
hold, but which the
[D_page 256]
Christians ignore. This is what keeps me the heathen I am! And I
earnestly invite the Christians of America to Confucius.”
The following similar instance was reported by the press, of
a woman from India—Pundita Ramabai—who visited Boston a few years ago
and was preparing to return to India to engage in teaching the high
caste women of India. She did not find it easy to tell to what
denomination of Christians she belonged. A reporter asked the question,
and she answered:
“I belong to the universal church of Christ. I meet good
Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and each one
tells something about the Bible. So it seems to me better to go there
myself and find the best I can. [A wise decision.] And there I find
Christ the Savior of the world, and to him I give my heart. I was
baptized when in England, and I commune with all Christian people who
allow me to do so. I do not profess to be of any particular
denomination, for I would go back to India simply as a Christian. To my
mind it appears that the New Testament, and especially the words of our
Savior, are a sufficiently elaborate creed. I believe as the Savior has
told us, and his message through John has come to us, that God is a
spirit, is light and love; that he created, illuminates and pervades the
universe; that Jesus, his Son and Servant, the apostle of our faith, was
sent by him to be the savior and leader of his children; that as many as
believe on him have the right to be the sons of God; and that the holy
spirit is our guide and comforter, the great gift of God through Christ;
that there is but one Church, and that all who acknowledge Jesus as
their Savior are members of that Church. I believe that whatever is
needed for my salvation will be given me, and I pray earnestly that God
may grant me grace to be a seeker and follower of truth and a doer of
his will. In Boston they said I was a Unitarian; I told them I was
not. Neither am I a Trinitarian. I do not understand these modern
inventions at all. I am simply a Christian, and the New Testament
teaches me my religion.”
The Japanese converts to Christianity manifested a similar
[D_page 257]
spirit,
their noble course being both a severe rebuke to the nominal churches
and their creeds and a beautiful commentary on the power of the Word of
God. Of their opinions of the creeds of Christendom, and of their
determination to stand by the Bible alone, we have the following
published account:
“When the Japanese Empire was thrown open to American
commerce, the American churches were zealous to proselyte that country
to their several confessions of faith. The missionaries sent out found
that their division would be an effectual barrier to success, and agreed
to conceal their differences and work together for souls alone, simply
presenting one God, and Christ crucified for sinners, until they should
obtain a foothold. The dissimulation succeeded so well that in 1873, in
respect to the clamor for sectarian harvests on the part of home Boards,
it was agreed that the converts were sufficiently numerous to warrant a
division of the spoil.
“But when the
deceit was carefully exposed to the converts from heathenism, an
unexpected difficulty arose. These Japanese Christians assembled and
drew up a petition, setting forth the joy and peace and righteousness
they had found in Christ Jesus, and objecting to being divided, contrary
to the Word and spirit of God, and urging the missionaries, since they
had confessed such a deplorable state of things in their own country, to
return to America and leave the further evangelization of Japan to them.
“Copies of this petition were forwarded to the various
Boards by which the missionaries were supported and controlled, and
agents were sent out to investigate and report. One of these agents,
whose letter was published in The Independent (N. Y.),
says that to these minds, just brought from the darkness of heathenism,
‘the simple joys of salvation overshadow all other considerations,’ and
‘it will be many years before they can be indoctrinated into the nice
distinctions which divide Christendom.’ Nevertheless, these whose
‘other considerations’ overshadowed the ‘joys of salvation’ and shut out
the love of God, persevered in the work of dividing. The spirit of God,
as it always does, prompted these honest souls to meet in the name of
Jesus only. The
[D_page 258]
most
difficult thing in the work of the sectarian missionary is to
‘indoctrinate the convert into the nice distinctions which divide
Christendom.’ Very few of the adherents of any sect in America are so
indoctrinated. They are prejudiced and overcome by other considerations
than real convictions. A very small per cent, have anything like
intelligent consciences about professions of faith and the distinctions
by which they are separated from other sects.”
Such are the sentiments of intelligent heathen, bewildered
and confused by the misrepresentations of the divine character and
doctrines. But we rejoice to know that, notwithstanding the conflict of
creeds and the unchristian conduct of multitudes of professed
Christians, and of the so-called Christian nations, all Christian
missionary effort among the heathen peoples has not been in vain, but
that here and there the seeds of divine truth have dropped into good and
honest hearts and brought forth the fruits of righteousness and true
Christian character. Such fruits, however, cannot be credited to the
creeds, but to the Word and spirit of God, despite the confusion of
human creeds. The Lord refers to the Old and New Testament Scriptures as
“My two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3), and faithfully they have borne their
testimony to every nation.
As to whether the heathen religionists will have any
disposition to affiliate with nominal Christianity, we have no
affirmative indications. On the contrary, their representatives at the
World’s Parliament of Religions were impressed chiefly with the
inferiority of the Christian religion to their estimate of their own;
but the “sure word of prophecy” indicates very clearly that the various
Protestant sects will form a cooperative union or federacy, and that
Catholicism and Protestantism will affiliate, neither losing its
identity. These are the two ends of the ecclesiastical heavens which, as
their confusion increases, shall roll together as a scroll
(Isa. 34:4; Rev. 6:14) for self-protection—as distinct
[D_page 259]
and
separate rolls, yet in close proximity to each other.
For this desired end Protestants show themselves ready to
make almost any compromise, while Papacy has assumed a most conciliatory
attitude. Every intelligent observer is aware of these facts; and every
reader of history knows the baneful character of that great
antichristian system that now sees, in the great confusion of
Protestantism, its opportunity for readvancing to power. And, though
realizing in itself a strength superior to that of divided
Protestantism, the great Papal system also fears the approaching crisis,
and hence desires most anxiously the union of Christendom, Papal and
Protestant, civil and religious.
The following extract from a paper by the noted “Paulist
father,” Walter Elliot, of New York city, read at the Columbian Catholic
Congress of 1893, shows the purpose of the church of Rome to take
advantage of the present confusion of Protestantism. He said:
“The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our
opportunity. Denominations, and ‘creeds,’ and ‘schools,’ and
‘confessions’ are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built
them, and little men can demolish them. This new nation cannot but
regard with disdain institutions [Protestant] hardly
double its own short life, and yet utterly decrepit; cannot but regard
with awe an institution [the Roman Catholic Church] in whose life the
great republic could have gone through its career nearly a score of
times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at
the freshness of perennial [Roman Catholic] religion, and must soon
salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism
are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out.”
Pope Leo XIII in an encyclical, offered Roman Catholics a
premium to have them pray for the conversion of Protestants to the
church of Rome, the premium being release for a time from the pains of
purgatory. From his address to Protestants, which formed a portion of
the encyclical, we quote the following words:
[D_page 260]
“It is with
burning charity that we now turn towards those people, who in a more
recent age under the influence of exceptional convulsions, temporal and
material, left the bosom of the Roman church. Forgetful of past
vicissitudes, let them raise their spirits above human things, and,
thirsting only for truth and salvation, consider the church founded by
Jesus Christ. If they will then compare their own churches with this
church and see to what a pass religion has come with them, they will
admit readily that having forgotten the primitive traditions in several
important points, the ebb and flow of variety has made them slip into
new things. And they will not deny that of the truths which the authors
of this new state of things had taken with them when they seceded hardly
any certain and authoritative formula remains...
“We know full well how many long and painful labors are
necessary to bring about the order of things which we would see
restored, and some may think perhaps that we are too hopeful, pursuing
an ideal rather to be desired than expected. But we place all our hope
and trust in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, remembering the
great things which were accomplished once by the so-called madness of
the cross and of its preaching to the wise world, which looked on
stupefied and confounded. Especially do we implore princes and rulers,
in the name of their political foresight and solicitude for the
interests of their peoples, to weigh our designs equitably, and second
them by their favor and authority. Were only a part of the fruits that
we expect to ripen, the benefit would not be small amid the present
rapid downfall of all things, and when to the prevailing unrest is
joined fear of the future.
“The last century left Europe wearied by disasters and
still trembling from the convulsions by which she had been shaken.
Might not the century which now wears to its end hand down as a heritage
to the human race some few pledges of concord and the hope of the great
benefits held out by the unity of Christian faith?”
That the trend of Protestantism is Romeward cannot be
denied. That was the real significance of the prominent part given to
Roman Catholics in the great Religious Parliament;
[D_page 261]
and it is
the expressed anxiety of all interested in the Protestant Union movement
to secure alliance, if not union, with the Church of Rome. One of the
items in the Presbyterian creed now considered obnoxious, and which it
is proposed shall be changed, is that referring to the Papacy as
Antichrist.
The following letter of a Methodist clergyman on Church
Union addressed to Cardinal Gibbons, strongly indicates this tendency
amongst Protestants:
Taunton, Mass.
“Dear Cardinal: You are, without doubt familiar with and
interested in the fact that there is a movement among the Protestant
churches toward reunion. If such a reunion is to take place, why may it
not include the Roman Catholic church? Has not the Roman church some
foundation to propose upon which we may all stand? Cannot she meet us
with concessions which may be temporary, if she believes us wrong, until
we learn of Christ and his plans more perfectly?
“Of one thing I feel sure, that personally I have a
growing tendency to look more and more carefully for the good in all
branches of the Christian church, and I apprehend that I am not alone in
this. Sincerely yours,
Geo. W. King, Pastor First M. E. Church.”
To this the Cardinal replied as follows:
Cardinal’s Residence, Baltimore.
“Rev. Geo. W. King, Dear Sir: In reply to your favor I
beg to say that your aspirations for the reunion of Christendom are
worthy of all praise.
“This reunion would be only fragmentary if the Catholic
Church were excluded. It would also be impossible; for there can be no
union possible without a solid Scriptural basis, and that is found in
the recognition of Peter and his successor as the visible head of the
church.
“There can be no stable government without a head, either
in civil, military or ecclesiastical life. Every State must have its
governor, and every town must have its mayor or municipal chief with
some title. If the churches of the world
[D_page 262]
look for
a head, where will they find one with the standard of authority or
prescription except the Bishop of Rome?—not in Canterbury or
Constantinople.
“As for the terms of reunion, they would be easier than
is commonly imagined. The Catholic church holds to all the positive
doctrines of all the Protestant churches, and the acknowledgment of the
Pope’s judicial supremacy would make the way easy for accepting her
other doctrines. You are nearer to us than you imagine. Many doctrines
are ascribed to the church which she repudiates.
Faithfully yours in Christ, J. Card.
Gibbons.”
To this the following was sent in reply, and by consent of
both gentlemen the letters were made public in the interest of the union
desired.
“Dear Cardinal: Your reply has been read with much
interest. May I not now inquire if it would not be a wise and valuable
thing for the Catholic church to set forth to the Protestant churches a
possible basis of union (describing the matter in sufficient detail)
somewhat after the order of the Chicago-Lambeth propositions of the
Episcopal church? I know how much the Methodist church, and indeed the
entire Christian church, is misunderstood by many, and I conceive it
more than possible, inevitably, that the Catholic church should likewise
be misunderstood and misjudged in many things. Cannot the Catholic
church correct this misunderstanding on the part of Protestants to a
large degree at least, and would not this hasten the desired reunion?
“I believe the present divided condition of Christendom
to be full of folly, shame and disgrace, and have no objection to a
central authority under certain conditions of limitation or restraint.
Sincerely yours, Geo. W. King.”
The sentiments of the popular Young People’s Society of
Christian Endeavor toward the Church of Rome were very clearly indicated
at its annual convention in Montreal in 1893. Among the delegates at
the convention was a noted Hindoo from Bombay, India, Rev. Mr. Karmarkar,
a convert
[D_page 263]
to
Protestant Christianity. In his remarks before the Society he stated
that Romanism was a hindrance to missionary work in India. The
statement met with very manifest disapproval in the convention; but when
the French Romanist dailies took up the matter and published what the
Hindoo had said, commenting angrily upon it, and in consequence a
subsequent session of the convention was disturbed by a mob of Roman
Catholics, the presiding officer of the convention endeavored to appease
their wrath by rising in the midst of the assembly and declaring that he
and the delegates were not responsible for Mr. Karmarkar, thus leaving
their guest alone to bear the brunt of their wrath, for thus
courageously testifying to the truth. Evidently Mr. Karmarkar was the
only Protestant at that convention, the only one who neither feared,
sympathized with, nor worshiped the beast. (Rev. 20:4) The following
were his words as reported by The American Sentinel, Aug.
1893:
“There is a remarkable correspondence between Romish
worship and Hindoo worship. Romanism is but a new label on the old
bottles of paganism containing the deadly poison of idolatry. Often the
Hindoos ask us, when seeing the Romish worship, ‘What is the difference
between Christianity and Hindooism?’ In India we have not only to
contend with the hydra-headed monster of Idolatry, but also the octopus
of Romanism.”
Among the few voices raised in opposition to this action of
the Christian Endeavor Society were the following resolutions presented
at a patriotic meeting of the citizens of Boston, and unanimously
adopted by two thousand people:
“Whereas, At the Christian Endeavor
convention now in session at Montreal, Rev. S. V. Karmarkar clearly and
truthfully stated the hindrances to the progress of Christianity in
India, mentioning the demoralizing influences of the Roman Catholic
church, thereby arousing the animosity
[D_page 264]
of French
Roman Catholics, who endeavored to prevent free speech in a Protestant
convention by riotous acts; therefore
“Resolved, That we, Protestant citizens of
Boston, fully endorse Rev. S. V. Karmarkar in boldly stating facts; and
we deeply regret that a company of Christians sought to pacify Romanists
by a rising vote (which was loudly applauded), apparently censuring a
man of God for telling the truth.
“Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions
be sent to the daily and patriotic papers, and forwarded to Rev. S. V.
Karmarkar.”
Another popular Protestant institution, the Chautauqua
Literary Circle, at one of its large annual conventions, sent the
following message to a similar assembly of Roman Catholics, more
recently instituted and located on Lake Champlain. The message was
adopted by unanimous vote and with great enthusiasm, and read thus:
“Chautauqua sends greetings and best wishes to the
Catholic Summer School.” In reply Chancellor Vincent received the
following from Dr. Thomas J. Conarty, head of the Catholic Summer School
at Plattsburgh, Lake Champlain: “The scholars of the Catholic Summer
School of America are deeply grateful for Chautauqua’s cordial
greetings, and send best wishes to Chautauqua in return.”
Another company of Protestants, chiefly Covenanters, is very
solicitous to have this nation (which, from the beginning of its life
has repudiated the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and which has
never acknowledged the right of any man to rule as “king by the grace of
God”) put on the garb of Christian profession, however greatly it might
dishonor that profession. One of the chief objects of this National
Reform Movement, as it is called, is to enforce upon all the strict
observance of Sunday as a day of worship. And in hope of securing their
ends by a majority vote of the people, they are very solicitous to have
their influence augmented by the Roman Catholic vote. Hence they
express
[D_page 265]
their
willingness to make almost any concessions, even to sell their religious
liberty, bought with the blood of the martyrs, to gain the cooperation
of the Church of Rome. Hear their proposition expressed by the chief
organ of the denomination, The Christian Statesman, thus:
“Whenever they [the Roman Catholic Church] are willing to
cooperate in resisting the progress of political atheism, we will gladly
join hands with them.” Again, “We may be subjected to some rebuffs in
our first proffers; for the time is not yet come when the Roman Church
will consent to strike hands with other churches, as such; but the time
has come to make repeated advances, and gladly accept cooperation in any
form in which they may be willing to exhibit it. It is one of the
necessities of the situation.” Rev. S. F. Scovel (Presbyterian)
The same journal also marked the duty of the United States’
government as follows: “Our remedy for all those malific influences is
to have the government simply set up the moral law and recognize God’s
authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does
not conform to it.” Yes, “the necessities of the
situation” are indeed forcing the religious powers of
Christendom into peculiar positions, and it does not require a very keen
observation to note the backward turn of the wheels of religious
progress; nor to surmise where religious liberty will be brought to an
abrupt end.
Said an Episcopal clergyman, Rev. F. H. Hopkins, in an
article published in The Century Magazine:
“Of one thing I am certain: If at the time of any of the
great separations among Christians in the past, the condition of the
church had been what it is today, and if the mind and temper of those
who became separatists then had been the same as that of their
representatives now, no separation would have taken place at all. [Very
true!] This change on both sides is a proof, to me, that the God of
unity and love is, in his own time and way, bringing us all together
again in him. [But to those not intoxicated with the
[D_page 266]
spirit or
wine of great Babylon (Rev. 17:2) it is proof of the decline of vital
godliness and love of the truth; and an evidence that the spirit of that
noble movement, The Great Reformation, is dead.]”
Hear, further, the more sober testimony of Archdeacon
Farrar. On resigning his position as editor of The Review of the
Churches, he made this remarkable statement:
“The whole cause of the Reformation is going by default,
and if the alienated laity do not awake in time and assert their rights
as sharers in the common priesthood of all Christians, they will awake
too late, to find themselves members of a church which has become widely
popish in all but name.”
While we see that, in this country, the church nominal, both
Papal and Protestant, is seeking the protection and cooperation of the
state, that the various sects are associating themselves together for
mutual cooperation and defense, ignoring their doctrinal differences and
emphasizing their points of agreement, and that all are anxious for a
speedy union at any price which will not affect their policy, in Europe
the case is somewhat reversed. There the civil powers feel their
insecurity and danger most, and they consequently look to the
ecclesiastical powers for what assistance they may be able to render.
Here the languishing eye of the church looks imploringly to the state,
while there the tottering thrones seek props from the church.
Such is the unhappy condition of that great system which is
now brought to judgment before the assembled world—that system which
proudly styles itself Christendom (Christ’s Kingdom), but which Christ
promptly and emphatically disowns, and most appropriately names
“Babylon.” How manifest the absurdity of applying the name Christendom
to the kingdoms of this world! Do the prophets portray any such
condition of things in the glorious Kingdom of God? Will the great
Prince of Peace
[D_page 267]
go about
imploring the nations to recognize his authority and grant him his
rights—of territory, of wealth, or of dominion? Will he beg a pittance
from the poorest peasant or court the favor of the affluent? Or will he
implore his subjects to bestir themselves and exert their dying energies
to support his tottering throne? Oh, no; with dignity and authority,
when the appointed time comes, he will take unto himself his great power
and begin his glorious reign; and who shall hinder or obstruct his way?
Thus there is a general banding together of the powers that
be, both civil and ecclesiastical, and a mutual dependence one upon
another; and with these are bound up the interests of all the rich, the
great and mighty—the interests of kings and emperors and statesmen and
lords and ladies and titled officials and priests and bishops, and the
clergy of every grade, great capitalists, bankers, monopolistic
corporations, etc., etc. The present status of the conflict is but a
clashing of ideas and a general preparation for the impending crisis.
The ecclesiastical powers, referred to in the Scriptures as the powers
of the heavens (the nominal spiritual powers), are approaching each
other, and truly, “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll”;
but “while they be folden together as thorns [for there
can be no peaceful and comfortable affiliation of liberty-loving
Protestants and the tyrannical spirit of Papacy], and while they are
drunken as drunkards [intoxicated with the spirit of the world, the wine
of Babylon], they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry” (Nahum 1:10),
in the great cataclysm of trouble and anarchy predicted in the Word of
God as the introduction of the Millennial Kingdom.
*
*
*
We would not be understood as including all Christians as
“Babylonians.” Quite to the contrary. As the Lord recognizes some in
Babylon as true to him and addresses them
[D_page 268]
now,
saying—“Come out of her, my people” (Rev. 18:4), so do we;
and we rejoice to believe that there are today thousands who have not
bowed the knee to the Baal of our day—Mammon, Pride and Ambition. Some
of these have already obediently “Come out of her,” and the remainder
are now being tested on this point, before the plagues are poured out
upon Babylon. Those who love self, popularity, worldly prosperity,
honor of men more than they love the Lord, and who reverence human
theories and systems more than the Word of the Lord, will not come out
until Babylon falls and they come through the “great tribulation.” (Rev.
7:9,14) But such shall not be accounted worthy to share the Kingdom.
Compare Rev. 2:26; 3:21; Matt. 10:37; Mark 8:34,35; Luke 14:26,27
*
*
*
“The time
of trouble nears, ‘It hasteth greatly’;
E’en now
its ripples span the world-wide sea;
O when its
waves are swollen to mountains stately,
Will the
resistless billows sweep o’er me?
“Or,
terror-stricken, will I then discover
A wondrous
presence standing in glory by,
Treading
the waters! Immanuel—Life-giver,
With words
of cheer—‘Be not afraid—’tis I.’
“Yes, a
hand, strong, yet tender as a mother’s,
Will from
the surging billows lift me out.
With soft
rebuke, more loving than a brother’s:
‘Of little
faith! O, wherefore didst thou doubt?’”
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