Having given a sketch of the divine worship, religious rites and sacrificial feasts of the Hindoos, I shall now call the attention of the reader to a brief description of their religion and spiritual culture in general.

“In the hoary past India had mighty religious leaders and authors who laid claim to divine authority. Religious systems were announced, and voluminous, erudite verses were published for the guidance of the people, or rather the Brahmins or priests, which writings are still the Bibles of the Hindoos. The most important of these books are called ‘Vedas,’ ‘Shastras,’ and ‘Puranas.’ The lively imagination of the authors and the religious enthusiasm of the people were not content with a few deities, therefore their number has been increased from time to time, until they now amount to thirty-three million gods and goddesses. The most important of the former are Brahma, Visnu and Shiva, and of the latter Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. The former are worshiped as the creating, preserving and destroying powers, and from these three all the others have originated; at first considered as representatives of certain attributes and principals of the three chief deities, but later as independent, individual deities. Many of these gods are represented by images and pictures, which originally the whole people, but at present only the learned, regard merely as representations of certain divine principals and attributes. Later on these were put in the place of the things which they represented, so that the stone image, the river, the tree, or the animal is regarded as the god himself by the ignorant multitude.

“According to the Hindoo doctrine of creation the earth rests on the back of a tortoise, and the human race was originally created members of four different classes or castes. Thus the class or caste distinction of India is closely incorporated with its religion, and shows that the priests have been very shrewd in founding a religious system which secured for themselves not only salvation after death, but, above all, an abundance of the good things of this world. Brahma was from the beginning, and from him emanated Vishnu and Shiva. Thereafter Brahma created first water, then the earth, then from out of his head a man who was the Brahmin, and became the chief of the caste of priests, or the highest class. After this he let a Kshatriya issue from out of his arms, a Vaisya from his loins and a Sudra from his feet, and which became respectively the progenitors of the three other castes, the warriors, the craftsmen and merchants, and the common laborers. These castes have gradually been divided into many subdivisions, but the four principal ones still remain with all their rigid distinctions. Through certain misdemeanors, which may be very insignificant, a person belonging to a higher may be degraded to a lower caste, but one of a lower caste can never rise to a higher, not even by the most meritorious achievements.”

Of all the cruel chains by which tyrants have fettered men, none has been a more formidable enemy of liberty or a greater impediment to human progress than this dreadful system of caste. It has stifled all noble efforts, all brotherly love and humane feelings; it has plunged the people into superstition, indifference and ignorance; it has doomed ninety-nine hundredths of the myriads of India to the most cruel slavery, in body and in soul; it has placed locks and fetters on the human mind and branded the infant in its mother’s womb to infamy and execration; and, the worst of all, it has stifled all incentive to progress and development. It has smothered many noble feelings, and taught men to hate and despise each other; and so strong is the class distinction of this system that a good Hindoo of our day would a thousand times rather die of thirst or hunger than take a glass of water or a piece of bread from a person of a lower caste. Like other evils it has also been a curse to its authors, the Brahmins themselves, by lulling the great majority of them into ignorance and indifference. For why should they take the trouble to study or work when the whole world with its joys, pleasures and honors is open to them anyway? Space does not allow discussing this matter more fully, hence I will simply cite some of the doctrines which the Brahmins claim to have found in the divine books, and which the people still regard as sacred:

“Whoever disturbs a Brahmin during his religious contemplations shall lose his life; if a person of a lower caste sits down on the mat of a Brahmin, his back shall be burned with red-hot irons; if he touches the hair, beard or neck of a Brahmin, the judge shall order both his hands to be cut off; if he listens to evil reports about the Brahmins, molten lead shall be poured into his ears; if he does not arise when a Brahmin approaches, he will be changed into a tree after death; if he casts an angry look at a Brahmin the god Yama shall pluck out his eyes. The Shastras teach that a gift to a Brahmin is of incalculable value to the giver. Whoever gives a Brahmin a cow shall gain a million years of bliss in heaven, and whoever wishes success in anything must fÊte the Brahmins and wash their feet. Whoever bequeathes land or other valuable property to the Brahmins on his death-bed immediately receives forgiveness of sins and the greatest bliss in heaven. To drink the water in which a Brahmin has washed his feet and to lick the dust from under a Brahmin’s feet are works of great merit for the life which is to come. No one but a Brahmin is allowed to give religious instruction, and all offerings to the gods must be brought to the Brahmin, because no ceremony will avail anything unless it is accompanied by an offering to them. Therefore a multitude of ceremonies have been introduced by the Brahmins in order that their coffers may be well filled. I will name a few of those ceremonies which relate to everybody’s life and death, and which cannot, therefore, be neglected.

“As soon as a mother knows she has conceived, a Brahmin must be sent for to read certain formulas; when the child is born a Brahmin must be called for the same purpose, also when it is a week, six months, two years and eight years old, and again when the young people are to be married; in all cases of sickness, at the death-bed, at the cremation of the body, and every month the first year after a person’s death; and at each one of these visits the Brahmin is entitled to money or other gifts. Also if a family is subject to any misfortune the Brahmin must be called to conjure the evil powers; if a bird of prey alights on the roof, the owner of the house must call a Brahmin to purify the house by his blessing; when he moves into a new house the Brahmin must bless it beforehand; when a man dies on an unlucky day his son must pay the Brahmin money to ward off a similar calamity from him; when a well is dug a Brahmin must bless it before its water can be used; during eclipses of the sun and the moon everybody sends gifts to the Brahmins; at every change of the moon the Brahmin is entitled to gifts as well as on forty regular holidays every year; during small-pox or cholera ravages he is called to ward off the plague; the farmer cannot reap his grain, the fisherman cannot go to sea, the merchant cannot make a bargain unless he has bought the blessing of the Brahmin and paid for the same.”

And still the Hindoos possess a high culture, and their civilization is one of the oldest in the world. They are endowed with a strong religious feeling. They are profound, peaceful, diligent, economical and law abiding; many of them have become distinguished in learning, art and science; they have been the teachers of the philosophers and scholars of other nations, and for thousands of years they have pondered deeply on questions pertaining to the human soul, immortality and the life to come, and endeavored to satisfy their craving and yearning for a closer union with the infinite by a devotion and self sacrifices which can well be compared with the sufferings of the Christian martyrs. Accordingly if any people could attain a higher development and a happy condition by other means than the influence of the Christian religion, that people ought to be the Hindoos. Yet, after all their struggles, we now find them on a lower level than they were thousands of years ago. What a picture! All these millions of civilized, peaceful, diligent, sensible people bend their knees before thirty-three millions of disgusting images and pictures, and among all this people, in all their thirty thousand cities there was not a hospital for the sick, not an asylum for the blind or deaf, not a home for lepers or insane, not one voice saying to the lowly and the poor: “Thou art my brother.”

Then came Buddha, the great reformer, preaching the religion of self denial and human love. The old petrified social fabric and religion were shaken to their foundation, and the system of caste was on the verge of dissolution. Under the first wave of enthusiasm caused by the teachings of Buddha, hospitals for the sick and asylums for the poor were established. Every fifth year the Buddhistic kings gave away their riches, not only to the monks but also to the poor, to the orphans and outcasts, and even asylums for sick animals were established. But Brahminism soon avenged itself by bloody wars, Buddhism was to a large extent driven out of India, and gradually its noble principles were forgotten. Nearly the same condition as that which prevailed before the Buddhistic reformation again prevailed, until the Christian civilization quite recently began to make itself felt through the practical measures introduced by the English government. Woman without liberty, without human worth, and almost without virtue; the countless many oppressed and despised by the privileged few, and not even allowed to read a religious book at the risk of eternal damnation; one of the greatest and mightiest nations on earth, discordant within itself, divided into different hostile classes; the one suspicious, envious, and full of hate toward the other, all of them humiliated, conquered, and ruled by a few strangers,—the English,—whose forefathers were savages a thousand years after the period when the Hindoos possessed the highest civilization of antiquity.

The cause of this deplorable condition is clear enough to those who have grown up under the influence of Christian civilization. With all its studies, all its wisdom, all its genius, and all its religious contemplation, this people have neglected or spurned the simple truths on which the Christian civilization is founded,—love and charity: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”—“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me,”—these beautiful principles are not found in the Hindoo Bibles, and, consequently, not in their acts and lives.

But a happier day has dawned on India. The star of Bethlehem is seen at the horizon. A new light is kindled which shall soon lead the people out of the ancient darkness to a true and happy condition. And, strange enough, the youngest of the nations,—America,—is foremost in missionary work among the oldest, and next to the Americans are the Scotch, the English, the French, the Germans, the Belgians; and even good old Sweden has one or two mission fields there where the results are as yet rather meager; but in the course of time this work, too, will undoubtedly bear golden fruits, for just as surely as people and races are to continue, just as surely shall the simple doctrine which the great Master taught be spread and accepted among them all, because it is the only one by which the nations can reach their true destiny.

A remarkable attempt at reformation in the spirit of Christianity has been made in our day by a native Hindoo, the late Keshub-Chunder-Sen, the founder of the society, Brahmo Somaj in Calcutta, whose object was to introduce the Christian civilization in all its better forms. One day I went to hear a lecture by this renowned Hindoo prophet and teacher, which afforded me one of the most pleasant and instructive hours in my life. The great hall contained an audience of nearly three thousand people, consisting chiefly of persons of influence and high rank, among the cultured Hindoos of the capital. The speaker was listened to with the greatest attention and respect, and the impression he made could not but be beneficial and lasting. I sat very close to the speaker, and took pains to notice his ways and manners while speaking to the large audience. His bearing in the pulpit made a remarkable impression, especially when, under the influence of some absorbing and transporting thought, his body was stretched out to its full height, and seemed to grow by the glow of inspiration. He was at that time a man of about forty-five years of age, of robust health, of symmetrical proportions, and with a face which beamed with intelligence and enthusiasm. The fame of this man is not limited to his native land, for even in Great Britain, where he spent several months a few years ago, he is very highly respected by thinking men and women of all classes who are devoted to the progress and improvement of mankind, and in his own country he is almost idolized. His faith, as far as formulated in definite language, coincides with that of the Unitarians of America, although he called it unitrinitarian, i.e., he believed in one God, the Creator of the world and the father of all men; and also in Christ and the Holy Spirit as revelations of the divine, which is one but not as three different persons in the deity. He believed that the propagation of true religion in the world has been greatly impeded by what he called the idolatry which in Christian countries has grown up around the human person of Jesus Christ, manifested as in the flesh, and he begged the missionaries who came to India not to confuse the minds of the Hindoos by any such idea as a deity consisting of three different persons; polytheism had been the curse of India from time immemorial.

Such are the main features of the teaching of this reformer which seem to promise a better time for the oppressed people of India. Later I became more intimately acquainted with him, and he had intended to visit America in my company, but was taken sick shortly before I left India, and died a couple of months thereafter.