I. HINDOO'S ANSWER TO THE QUESTION.
Well, brother Hindoo, will you be so good as to answer this question, "What shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" "Oh, yes!" responds the devout worshiper of Brahma, pointing to a stone arched pagoda. "Go and prostrate yourself in that holy building, made venerable by a thousand years' devotion, and offer up prayer and praise to Brahma, and, if you have committed any sins, implore his forgiveness. You must also believe in his Holy Book, the Vedas, and obey its precepts, which enjoin virtue and holiness, and forbid theft, robbery, murder, lying, dishonesty, adultery, and other crimes; and you must not only believe in the Holy Book as God's revealed will to mankind, but you must believe it is all true,—every word of it. You must believe, also, that it existed in the mind of the great God Brahma from all eternity; and some nine thousand years ago was revealed by him to certain holy men, known as rishis, or prophets, who recorded it in a book for the instruction and salvation of the world; and that this divinely revealed and perfect book contains all knowledge, past, present, and future, and all the religion necessary to save the whole human race. And, if you would become a true-born saint [i.e., in Christian language, "regenerated and born again">[, you must read the Holy Book through upon your bended knees. [And thousands of its most pious and devout disciples have performed this humble and laborious task.] And if you would advance still farther in soul-purification and true sanctity, so as to become a thrice-born saint [for they hold that the oftener you are born the better], then you must commit the divine volume all to memory. [And many of them, we are assured, have accomplished this herculean task.] But you can not attain to complete and perfect holiness as a Hindoo saint, unless you forsake the busy scenes of life, retire to lonely places, and devote yourselves to a life of religious contemplation." By leading this austere, self-denying life, they hold that men and women can attain to complete holiness, and draw near to the spirit of God, and become so exalted in his favor as to receive important revelations from him, and be enabled by him to perform great miracles, such as casting out devils, raising the dead, handling fire without being burned, and swallowing poison without being killed or injured, and finally become Gods, and ascend to heaven in mortal bodies after the manner of Enoch and Elijah. In one respect some of the sects are much more consistent than Christian professors. Believing, as Christians have always professed to do, that sickness is often sent by God as a punishment for sin, they never send for a physician, nor allow one to treat the case; because, as they argue, trying to cure it would be trying to counteract the judgment of God, and thus bring down his vengeance upon the heads of those guilty of this sin. Here Christians might learn an important moral lesson of the heathen,—that of living up to the doctrines they preach.
We have, then, the Hindoo answer to the question, "What must we do and believe in order to be saved?"