Shiva, Vishnu, and the other gods and goddesses adored by the populace were regarded by the illuminati as embodiments of various divine attributes, or incarnations to reveal the divine will and to deliver men from evil. There seemed no unwillingness to accept Christ in some such way as this. As one said to me, “I do not know His history as well as I know my own sacred books, but if what is told of Him is true, I believe that he must have been a saint, if not a Divine Incarnation.” Another thought that each race had its own revelation. “We,” he said, “have Krishna, you have Christ. You say that your Christ was crucified—our Krishna was shot.”
To an inquiry why if their own faith was so elevated they left the masses to idol-worship I had the crushing reply: “Ignorant people and females cannot at once comprehend the universal presence. We teach them first that God is in the image—so He is, for He is everywhere—and from that we go on to explain that He pervades the universe.” I asked my ascetic friend, Parthasaradi, whether in that case they might find the deity in the leg of a table—to which he retorted with Tyndall’s views about the mutability of atoms, from which he deduced that being everywhere He was certainly also in the leg of the table—and he cited Roman Catholic teaching on his side as justifying idol-worship. Parthasaradi had a marvellous store of quotations from Tyndall, Leibnitz, Matthew Arnold, and others at his fingers’ ends. He kindly said that if I were as good as my creed he would be satisfied, and hoped that I would be content if he were as good as his. He had catechised Mr. Rees about me before he would condescend to talk to me, as he did not think that “European females” were generally sufficiently interested in Hindu religion to make them worthy of his expositions. He had been a Vakil of the High Court, but had given up his position to embrace an ascetic life, and had devoted his property to founding a library, only reserving enough for himself and his wife to live upon. His wife had become a sort of nun. He was a curious-looking man with long shaggy black hair and very white teeth—rather handsome. His costume consisted of a cotton dhoti (cloth) of doubtful whiteness wrapped round his legs and a green shawl twisted about his body. There is no doubt that he was very earnest in his faith in the Almighty, and I was really touched by his appeal one day to Mr. Rees, who chanced to be present at a visit which he paid me. Mr. Rees told him that he was so eloquent that he almost converted him to the need for greater religion. Whereupon said the ascetic, with evident emotion: “Why don’t you come at once? You need not wait for an invitation as to a Governor’s breakfast.” He spoke just like a member of the Salvation Army, and I am sure with an equally genuine feeling. It would be absurd to generalise from a superficial acquaintance with India, but it seemed to me from conversation with these and other educated Indians that, while quite willing to accept the high Christian morality and also to profit from the education in Christian schools, working out a man’s own salvation appealed to them more than the doctrine of Atonement.
FAITH OF EDUCATED HINDUS
The Dewan Rao Behadur Kanta Chunder, a highly intelligent man whom we met later on at Jeypore, allowed that the Atonement was his stumbling-block. He had been educated in a Mission School and had a great respect and affection for the Principal, but he was not a professing Christian. He said that he believed in one God, but was obliged to continue Shiva-worship to please his mother. I hope that he received the same dispensation as Naaman! He further said that he believed in the transmigration of souls, but thought that all spirits would ultimately return to the Great Spirit whence they came.
I asked this Dewan about a point on which I was curious—namely, whether as a child, before he came under Mission influence, his Hindu faith had a practical influence on his daily conduct. “Oh, yes,” he said; “if I did anything wrong I was quite frightened of the images of the gods in the house”—so I suppose they have a real effect, but no one seemed to think that anything made the native Indian truthful! However, it is to be feared that with the majority even of Christians truth is not a primary virtue.
To return to Madras and our adventures there. I do not attempt descriptions of the cities or scenery which we visited. Much as we enjoyed such sights, they are fully described in guide books, and I keep to our personal experiences. The length of our visit to Madras was partly due to unfortunate circumstances which it is unnecessary to detail at length, though they have since in broad outline become public property. Briefly, shortly after our arrival Lady Connemara, who had been staying at Ootacamund, arrived at Government House accompanied by the doctor and one of the staff. The following day she migrated to an hotel just as a large dinner-party was arriving, and we had to conceal her absence on plea of indisposition.
After several days’ absence and much negotiation she consented to return—but Lord Connemara implored us to remain while she was away, and even after she came back, to help him look after his guests, particularly some who came to stay in the house. We were rather amused, when later on we visited the Prendergasts at Baroda, to discover that Sir Harry Prendergast and his daughters, who had stayed at Government House in the midst of the trouble, had never discovered that Lady Connemara was not there, but thought that she was ill in her own rooms all the time! I cannot help thinking that some of us must have been rather like the policeman before the magistrate of whom the cabman said “I won’t go for to say that the gentleman is telling a lie, but he handles the truth rather carelessly.” I fear that we must have handled the truth rather carelessly.
Fortunately the native servants could not speak English, and the better class natives in the city behaved extraordinarily well in wishing to keep things quiet as far as possible. Anyhow, Lady Connemara came back for a time, and ultimately—some time in the following year, I think—returned to England. The end, as is well known, was a divorce. She married the doctor, and Lord Connemara a rich widow—a Mrs. Coleman. They are all dead now and the causes of dispute do not matter; they may be summed up with the old formula, “Faults on both sides.”
The delay was rather tiresome for us, as we had planned to get to Calcutta well before Christmas, but on the other hand it enabled us to see a good deal that we could not have done in the short time which we had originally destined to the Presidency, and Lord Connemara and his staff did everything for our entertainment.
THEOSOPHISTS AT ADYAR