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Lesson of Chinese religions.

perial Sacrifices and in the worship of ancestors. And as a primitive witness to the instincts or aspirations of the human soul they turn our attention to Christian teachings which have been overlooked. For there is nothing which gave strength to China which does not find a fitting place in the Apostolic doctrine, while the Christian Faith guards against the evils which weakened the Empire. The thought of continuity finds complete expression in the promise to 'Abraham and his seed,' of whom was Christ as concerning the flesh.' The thought of solidarity is hallowed in the conception of the Body of Christ, in which Christians are 'members one ' of another.' The thought of totality is confirmed in the fact that He is heir of all things through Whom all things were made, and in Whom they are destined to reach their consummation. The thoughts are given to us in the Gospel and they are all quickened by a continuous movement as the revelation of GOD in men in humanity and in the world is read more intelligently. Thus the characteristic conceptions of China become a great prophecy, and bear witness to a hope which will not for ever be unsatisfied.

(ii) RELIGIONS OF INDIA.

The transition from China to India is the

Contrasts of India and China.

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transition from a region of prose to a region of poetry, from common sense to imagination: from life regarded as the expression of a fixed law to life regarded as the manifestation of innumerable separate forces, separate at least for man.

(a) Hinduism.

But

The simplest form of Indian belief, and probably the simplest form of Aryan belief, that which is reflected in the oldest Vedic Hymns, is widely different from the Brahmanic and popular beliefs of India. It must not however be supposed that these Hymns represent a wide-spread, popular faith. They are rather the expression of personal, and in some respects, of conflicting opinions. The ideas of incarnation and transmigration and caste find no place in them. they present in a vivid form the great truth that man stands in a close relation to nature in all its varying forms, as the expression of some unseen power. He is, in a certain sense, dependent on the sun and sky and storms and dawn. acknowledge an ever-present, immutable law: but he acknowledges also vital relationships existing between outward things one to another and to himself which admit of infinite modifications. The conception of the Chinese Heaven

He may

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Earliest Vedic teaching

(Tien) as a constant order, and the conception of the Vedic Heaven (Varuna) as an approachable GOD, lie deep in human nature. In their simplest forms they are complementary and not contradictory aspects of being. We can set over against one another the confession of Lao-tzu and the great Hymn to Varuna, and feel that there is a partial truth in both: perhaps we can feel the partial truths more keenly when they are thus presented to us separately.

This then appears to be the characteristic of the Vedic Theology, that the great forces of nature Indra (the watery atmosphere), Surya (the sun), Agni (fire) and Ushas (the dawn) and the like represent personal action, though they are not personified. They are not Gods severally, but manifestations of GOD. There is no individuality, no subordination among them, and there is no trace of idolatry in the service through which they are approached. The worshipper turns from one title to another without defining in any way the great Being which lies behind and beyond all titles. He asks for specific, and in most cases, for material blessings. At the same time there are not unfrequent acknowledgments of sin, though sin is not apprehended in its depth, and prayers for forgiveness;

afterwards embodied in ritual.

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and over all stands the belief in immortality and retribution. There are no temples, no priests, no ritual. We listen to profound childlike utterances of an awakened consciousness. The 'seers' who clothe the truths to which their eyes are opened write spontaneously. They must sing, even as the bird must sing. They give witness to a feeling which has not been confined in any specific form of service.

The weakness of such a system—if indeed it can be called a system-is obvious. Indeed, as has been already said, there is no reason to think that the Hymns answer to any general or widespread or popular belief. A belief of this kind is in a perpetual flux. It takes its impress from the emotions of individual teachers, and is for a time capable of moulding small groups of men; but, when it has once passed out of its first stage, it is unfitted for a national faith. The Vedic belief consequently was humanised, so to speak, defined, embodied in a ritual; and this new belief, Brahmanism, was interpreted in a philosophic theory and made the basis of a social organisation. Priests, warriors, citizens had their functions distinguished as the original Aryan race advanced in India by conquest.

W. G. L.

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Brahmanism expresses the

In order to understand how this came to pass we must go back to the earliest Vedic Hymns.

It has been already noticed that in these Hymns the Divine names are names and do not answer to individualised deities. Each name represents for the time the whole Being of GOD so far as He is apprehended by the poet or the worshipper. This mysterious Being however is wholly undefined, and does not, except in the exertion of power, form an object of thought in the typical Vedic Theology.

But after a time the idea of an infinite, impersonal, ineffable existence, the source of all things and the support of all things, the neuter Brahma, was shaped, which thenceforward was taken as the basis of the Brahmanic faith. The origin of the word seems to be at present uncertain; the conception, however, is clear and consistent, and it is summed up in the statement that of Brahma and of Brahma alone this can be said, and this only, 'It is.'

Two deductions follow at once from such a conception of the absolute foundation of religious belief. All things have come into being from Brahma, and there is in Brahma a unity of all things. That which distracts us in the appearance of things is Mayà-illusion. We gain in