The conquest of our faith in India will be not the less, but the more, thorough, because it will be not only of the letter but also and chiefly of the spirit.

There are a few things which are fundamental to our faith, and which will become the universal and permanent possession of India.

1. The spirit and principles of Christianity will prevail and will dominate the land. Christian, as distinct from Hindu, principles are already making wonderful headway in the country. Many new institutions have been organized in the land, whose principles are those of Christ, and not of Manu. Even the oldest institutions of the country are becoming affected by the desire to appear modern, which really means an ambition to introduce Christian methods and principles. Educated Hindus, especially, add to this the peculiar weakness of interpreting things Hindu by a Christian terminology. The philosophy which they have imbibed and the standpoint to which they have been accustomed are western and, chiefly, Christian. So that when they study their own faith they do so with these Christian prepossessions; and even when they defend their ancestral religion, they really defend not the indigenous product of India, such as is taught by the Hindu pandit and believed by the mass of the people, but Hinduism Christianized and clothed in the garb of the West and spoken in the accents of a Christian.

Hindu Swamis, who have been educated in Christian mission schools, and have spent a few years in the far West, surrounded by a Christian atmosphere, imbibing Christian sentiments, and unconsciously adopting the Christian viewpoint, return to India upon a wave of popular excitement and give public addresses and receive the plaudits of their grateful countrymen. But what is it that such men as Vivekananda and Abhedananda, and all the rest of the Ananda tribe, teach upon their return to India? It is certainly not an orthodox Hinduism, nor is it the pure philosophy of the East. It is rather a strange compound in which Christianity figures as prominently as does Hinduism, and, perhaps, more conspicuously. What was the caste system recently enunciated by Abhedananda in Madras? It is certainly not a thing known in India by that name. And I have no doubt that his whole audience smiled when he presented his conception of a caste system so foreign to all Hindu ideas and practice. It is just so with his Vedantism, and with his interpretation of all the religious teachings of this land. They are now construed in terms foreign to the rishi and to the pandit. But (and this the point I wish to emphasize) these interpretations meet increasingly with the applause and acceptance of educated Hindu audiences. In other words, a Christian colouring and glamour thrown over Hinduism is adding to its popularity in the land.

In the general way of looking at religious things, and especially of apprehending religious thought, there is to-day almost as wide a gulf between the educated and cultured Hindu, on the one hand, and the authorized religious instructors of India, on the other, as there is between the same learned man of the East and the thoughtful man of the West.

Or, if we look at the multiplying institutions of the country, which truly represent the thoughts and sentiments of the leading people of India, we can easily see that they are imbued with non-Hindu, if not anti-Hindu, ideas and motives. The various Somajes and other religious movements, which mean so much in the life of India to-day, are more or less an endeavour to interpret life from a non-Hindu standpoint, which often means a Christian standpoint. In any case, the religious reform movements of India at the present time breathe largely the spirit of rebellion against old Hindu conceptions.

When we think of such important movements as that of Social Reform, we can see the spirit of Christianity completely dominant, and in sharp antithesis to Hindu teaching and ritual. The Social Reform movement in India is the spirit of Christianity, trying to express itself with as little offence as possible to orthodox Hinduism, and yet constantly antagonizing its deepest principles and eating into its very vitals.

The two forces which, next to direct Christian effort, do most for the promulgation of Christian principles in this land, are the public schools and the government itself. The educational system which now prevails, and which is growing in power, is distinctly a promoter of Christian thought and principle. We often call these schools godless; but we do them an injustice. Their work may be largely negative; but their teaching turns the mind of the young away from the silly superstitions and the absurd practices of popular Hinduism, and establishes modern conceptions, which, indeed, are Christian conceptions of life and of conduct.

The government is, in an important sense, established upon Christian principles; and in all its administrative processes exemplifies the Christian, as distinct from the Hindu and Brahmanic, view of justice and of right conduct; so that, if one were able to perceive clearly the spiritual forces at work in the institutional and social life of India, he would see not only that the foundation, but also that largely the superstructure, is becoming Christian in its character.

2. In the second place, the Christ Ideal of Life is acquiring ever increasing attraction and power in the land. India has never possessed an incarnated ideal of her own. No god in all her pantheon, and not one among all her noble sages, has ever posed before the followers of Hinduism, or has ever been thought of by Hindu devotees, as the exemplar of men and the ideal of human life. To many thousands who are outward members of the Hindu faith, and who would not dream of being baptized into institutional Christianity, Jesus Christ has become the Ideal of Life. He represents to them that moral type of perfection and ethical nobility of manhood to which they daily aspire. Krishna may be praised by the millions, notwithstanding his immoralities; and Rama may be extolled and even loved for his limited virtue; Yudhistra may be called "Dharman," notwithstanding his unrighteous passion for the dice. But Christ only, in the eyes of modern educated India, stands the perfect test of character. All over the land, Hindus of culture, of serious thought, and of ambition to reach after high ethical standards see in Jesus Christ the only inspiration and immaculate example of life that all history, myth, and legend present. And there is not a town in India to-day where there are not found these men of power and influence who are studying eagerly the life of Jesus, are pondering over the Gospel narratives; and are reading such books of Christian devotion as Thomas À Kempis's "Imitation of Christ." This last-named book is now being translated by a Brahman gentleman, a friend of the writer, and published by a Hindu firm for its Hindu readers! I have known such men for many years, and am assured that their tribe is increasing; they are men who for the first time have found the deepest yearnings of their soul answered in the example of Jesus.

Ask any of them for their reason, and they will tell you that Christ is of the East, like themselves, and that His example appeals to them with unique power.

In India, the ideal of life has been one of restraint. Starting with the conviction that human life is an unmixed evil, the restraint of passion and the elimination of every human emotion (the best as well as the worst) has been to the Hindu the goal and consummation of life. Nothing can be more inadequate than this; and the Hindu is beginning to feel it. Jesus represents Culture and Restraint. With him the restraint of the lower passions is with a view to the culture of the higher. The man of sin must die, that the man of God may live and prosper. This is the Christ ideal, as opposed to the Brahmanic. And the leaven of this ideal of life is spreading all over India and is transforming the aspirations of millions. There is nothing more inspiring or comforting than the assurance which we have that the Christ life is becoming the dominant ideal among the classes of India, as it is to a less degree among the masses.

A Brahman gentleman had the presumption to say to me, recently, that he and his fellow-Brahmans and other Hindus were able to understand the Christ much better than we of the West. He also claimed that they could understand the deep significance and the delicate shading of His thought better than we who are not of the East, like them. As a man who had taught and had tried to live the Christ in this land for more than a quarter of a century, I smiled at the audacity of his remark. And yet I knew that that man had visions of Christ that I had not; and that he has a fondness for Thomas À Kempis's book, beyond, perhaps, what I myself possess. There are aspects of the teaching and of the life of Jesus which appeal more powerfully to his Oriental and deeply mystical nature than they can possibly to the minds of all western men. Of one thing, however, I am assured; namely, that there is a growing host of Hindus in high position, and in low, who are enamoured of that ideal of life which our Lord taught and exemplified; and the fact that they interpret that life differently from myself causes me less sorrow than it does a desire to understand better their standpoint of appreciation.

3. I believe also that the Incarnation of our Lord, in its uniqueness and supreme power as the true manifestation of God, is finding rapidly increasing appreciation among the people of India.

India is the land of a myriad incarnations. The doctrine has run to seed, as it were, among this people. They are burdened with the excess of their eagerness to find God, and with their manifold imagination in giving Him form and earthly existence. There is no doctrine in Hinduism which has been carried to such a reductio ad absurdum.

Hindus to-day would gladly accept Christ as one of Vishnu's incarnations, if Christians would permit. I am not sure but that the tenth incarnation of Vishnu was meant to represent Christ. In any case, their growing familiarity with Him is gradually creating in their minds a disgust with the monstrosities of their own incarnations. Many of them are learning that God's Incarnation in Christ is the only one which has "descended" to the earth for the spiritual uplifting and redemption of our race; and, therefore, that it is the only incarnation which has within itself the seed of permanence and of universality. The petty, grotesque, and local "descents" of India will satisfy no one in these days of growing breadth and union, when the people are aspiring after an all-India nationality.

In Christ only is India finding the perfect revelation of God, because He alone revealed Him as the Father of boundless love; God, the Father of all men, loving them with an infinite passion and seeking them even unto death,—that is the message of the Christian Incarnation. And how strangely does it contrast with the moral obliquity and selfish indifference to human interest which characterize Hindu incarnations! In Christ do we find that God is the ever present, personal, loving Father, seeking to bring home again His lost children. He is supremely just and holy as Ruler and Provider; but His justice and holiness are illumined and transfused by His love. And as the Eternal Spirit He is striving in the hearts of men to bring them to Himself. This is the incarnation which is gaining ever increasing power in this land and whose worship is spreading from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas.

4. The cross of Christ will be accepted in India as the highest expression of God's love to man.

It is true that, among many Hindus to-day, as among the Greeks and Jews of old, the cross of Christ is an offence and a stumbling-block. The idea of vicarious atonement runs counter to the long-cherished doctrine of Karma. And it is possible that the universal prevalence of the Karma doctrine in the land will give to the doctrine of atonement the same one-sided aspect which it has obtained among many Christians of the West, in the present day, whereby the element of vicariousness, or its God-ward efficiency, has been considerably eliminated. They may remain content to consider the cross merely as a supreme manifestation of love, as that part of the divine example which has infinite power to attract men toward the highest life of lowest service and self-effacement. However this may be, at present, the cross in India has more significance than the trident to the Hindu. And the language of the cross appeals with increasing force to all men of thought. And I am encouraged to think that the modern commendable habit, among educated Hindus, of harking back to the oldest and the best of their religious writings, may carry India away again from its emphasis upon Karma to the original, pre-Buddhistic idea of vicariousness, when, for instance, in the Purusha Suktha of the Rig Veda, the Purusha is represented as being sacrificed by the gods. In the Brahmanas, also, it is said that the Prajabathi sacrificed himself in behalf of the gods.

Indeed, it has been well said that the doctrine of Karma itself, as connected with the doctrine of transmigration, carries within itself a strong element of vicariousness; since the person suffering in this birth knows nothing of the experiences of a supposed previous birth, and is, therefore, suffering for a past of which he is ignorant and for which his conscience cannot hold him responsible.

5. I believe, also, that the Christian conception of sin is gaining ever widening acceptance in India and will ultimately prevail as against the Hindu idea.

The doctrine of atonement and the doctrine of sin are intimately related; where the atonement is ignored or slighted, the conception of sin is apt to lose its ethical content and to become formal. India, through Buddha, abandoned, largely, its long-cherished principle of vicariousness and the multiplicity of its sacrifices. The consequence has been the gradual emasculation of the principle of atonement, until the word has become emptied of content and degraded so as to mean only the eating of a filthy pill because of a certain ceremonial uncleanness, which all the best people of the land know to be no uncleanness whatever.

It is natural, under these circumstances, to see the idea of sin also cease to have reference to moral obliquity and violation of ethical principles, and to refer only to intellectual blindness and (more commonly) to ceremonial laxness and ritualistic malfeasance. It is not surprising, therefore, that under this double departure from the truth, conscience should have lost its place of importance and of authority to so large an extent in this land.

But the day of better things has dawned upon India. The ethical concept and the moral significance of life are beginning to grip India very thoroughly. And I believe that the day will soon come when sin will cease to be connected with intellectual delusion and ignorance, and also with ceremonial irregularity, and will be recognized in its true moral hideousness as a thing of will, and not of intellect, a thing of deepest life, and not of puerile ritual.

Thus, with the coming of Christ and the emphasis of western thought and western civilization upon moral integrity and nobility of character, there is growing also a vision of sin in its right colour and perspective. The gradual training of the people in British law and in the social ethics of the West, and in the true meaning of the righteousness of the Kingdom of God as promulgated by the Christian faith, will, erelong, drive out the old pantheistic idea proclaimed by Vivekananda, when he said that the only sin that man was capable of was the sin of regarding himself as a sinner! It will also make it impossible for murderers to excuse themselves, as one did recently to our knowledge, as he was led to be executed, by saying that it was not he, but the god within him, that slew the man!

India is really passing through a quiet, but, nevertheless, a mighty ethical revolution. Its fundamental principles of morality and of religion, as the interpreters of life, are being rapidly transformed. Christianity is sowing everywhere its seed of life and of character, as they are exemplified in the perfect life of Jesus, and are elaborated in the four Gospels, in comparison with which the message of the four Vedas and of all subsequent Hindu literature is but as the dark and feeble groping of the blind after light.

These, then, are the five fundamental aspects of our faith which are among the eternal verities and which have come to India smiling with the impress of universality, and which are finding gradual acceptance in all portions of the land. These represent what one has aptly called "Substantive Christianity," as distinct from "Adjectival Christianity," which men are prone to overemphasize and to exalt unto the heavens. This latter we may love and cherish and promote with all our hearts; but it is sectional, partial, and transitory. The former, on the other hand, is abiding, and will shine throughout the ages of eternity. It will grow in influence and increase in its prevalence throughout this land until we all can say, with the late Chunder Sen, and with much more assurance than he, "None but Jesus is worthy to wear this diadem, India; and He shall have it."