India in the nineteenth century has been indeed a new touchstone to the Christian religion; and, in brief, to make plain how far Christianity has proved its force and its fitness to survive will occupy the remaining chapters of this book. What has been the nature and extent of the impact of Christian and modern thought upon India, and particularly upon Hinduism? Of course I am thinking particularly of the educated native Hindu community that has sprung up during the century just closed. The
dynamic of Christianity, which it is our task to test, implies a measure of conscious and intelligent approval. Japan is another such testing ground. Indeed the only large fields where Christianity is presented to bodies of non-Christian men able to yield approval or refuse it on intelligent grounds, of which they are conscious, are India and Japan. In China also there are no doubt large bodies of literati, but as a class they have not yet come into the modern world and into contact with Christianity. Even down to the Boxer rising of 1900, the wall of conservative patriotism shut off the literati in China from the outer civilisation and religions.
Indians themselves to be our witnesses.
Fortunately for students of India, her new literati are not merely in touch with the modern world, but express their minds readily in public meetings and in print. From themselves we shall chiefly quote in justifying the statements that will be made regarding the former or the modern religious opinions of India. To non-Christian or secular writers, also, we shall chiefly go, that the bias may rather be against than for the acknowledgment of change and progress. Our plan is to pronounce as little as possible upon either the Christian or the Hindu positions. We are observers of the religious ideas of modern India, and desire our readers to
come into touch with modern Indians and to see for themselves.
Obstacles to changes in religion.
Education strips new Indians of belief.
Truth is great and will prevail, but let us not under-estimate the difficulties in the way of new opinions in India, where these do not appeal to the natural desires for power or status or comfort. I have already referred to the deep-rooted notion that Hinduism is of the soil of India, and adherence to it bound up with the national honour. I refer to it here again only to glance at a kindred notion, common among Anglo-Indians, that the Indian religion is the outcome of Indian environment, and is "consequently" the best religion for India. That superficial fallacy, undoubtedly, alienates the sympathy of many Anglo-Indians from religious and social progress in India. Thrice at least did one of the most distinguished viceroys, when addressing native audiences, advise them to stick to their own beliefs, using these or very similar words. He was addressing Mahomedans at one place, Hindus at the second place, and Buddhists at the third, and we leave his advice at one place to contradict his advice at another. Certainly let us allow for variation in local usage, and in subjective opinion, while we are insisting on the universality and objectivity of truth. For
in spite of new and strange environment, in spite of that prevailing notion that religion is a racial thing, of the natural disinclination to change, of modern agnosticism and materialism when the old ideas do give way—in spite of these things, some of the cardinal features of Christianity are commending themselves to educated India. Far from religion being racial, the recent religious evolution of India suggests that in respect of the religious instinct and the religious faculty, mankind are one, not divided. A priori, therefore, we might anticipate that the elements of Christianity which have proved dynamical with new India will be the same that have proved their dynamic with educated men at home. So far as the situation in India has been created by the destructive influence of modern education, and by what may be called the modern spirit, the same influences are telling both in Europe and in India; they have come from Europe to India. There is the same unwillingness to believe in the supernatural, and the same demand that religion shall satisfy ethical and utilitarian tests. One difference, however, we may note. The educated men of India may not be living so entirely in the modern atmosphere as the men of Europe and America; but in India the modern spirit finds
usages and systems of thought more inconsistent with modern ideas. As a consequence, where in India the modern spirit has come, it has stripped men barer of belief. Listen to the following curious conglomeration, showing the influences at work, constructive and destructive. It is a passage from the pamphlet already referred to, The Future of India; the author is arguing for what he calls "practical recognition of the Fatherhood of God"—one new positive idea. That idea he takes to mean that "God is the Father of all nations and religions," and that therefore "it does not matter much to what religion a man belongs, so far as the future of his soul is concerned." Does not that signify that he himself is stripped bare of belief? From which modern notion, that religion does not matter much, he next argues that a man ought to deny himself the luxury and "satisfaction of breaking his religious fetters," i.e. of seceding from his own faith and joining another. He ought to stick to his community, says this writer, and "have the satisfaction of working for the elevation of his countrymen." There we have the new political consciousness. The writer, it should be added, says some plain things about the need of social reform.