India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

Yet, the Christian basis of this movement is unmistakable. We have seen how Ram Mohan Roy received a new baptism of thought and life upon studying the Christian Scriptures. It gave a new direction and inspiration to his theistic conceptions.

Chunder Sen found nearly all the inspiration from the Bible; and he lived under the spell of Christ's own power, and with a passion, such as few Christians possess, to follow Him and to be a full partaker of His blessings.

The writer will never forget his own brief visit to Protap Mozumdar, not long before the latter's death. It was on the eve of Good Friday. He found this devout man with eighteen of his disciples (one of them an Oxford graduate) studying together the tender words of our Lord uttered to His disciples in the Upper Room on the night in which He was betrayed. They were thus qualifying themselves properly to commemorate His death on the coming morn. And Mr. Mozumdar gave a strong lecture on "The Suffering Christ" to a large audience in one of the city halls on the morrow. The thought occurred to us, how many Christians had met together that same evening, like these Brahmos, for the purpose of studying our Lord's Words upon that memorable occasion and bringing themselves thus en rapport with Him whose atoning death they were to commemorate? As we parted, it was hardly necessary for that man of God to say to the writer in pathetic tones, "O, sir, I only wish you knew how near we are to you in these matters!" Some may have read that remarkable book, named "The Oriental Christ," written and published by this same gentleman in 1883. In the preface, he gives this strikingly beautiful account of his conversion:—

"Nearly twenty years ago, my troubles, studies, and circumstances forced upon me the question of personal relationship to Christ.... As the sense of sin grew on me, and with it a deep miserable restlessness, a necessity of reconciliation between aspiration and practice, I was mysteriously led to feel a personal affinity to the Spirit of Christ. The whole subject of the life and death of Christ had for me a marvellous sweetness and fascination.... Often discouraged and ridiculed, I persisted in according to Christ a tenderness of honour which arose in my heart unbidden. I prayed, I fasted, at Christmas and Easter times. I secretly hunted the book-shops of Calcutta to gather the so-called likenesses of Christ. I did not know, I cared not to think, whither all this would lead.... About the year 1867 ... I was almost alone in Calcutta. My inward trials and travails had really reached a crisis. It was a week-day evening, I forget the date now. The gloomy and haunted shades of summer evening had suddenly thickened into darkness.... I sat near the large lake in the Hindu College compound.... A sobbing, gusty wind swam over the water's surface.... I was meditating upon the state of my soul, on the cure of all spiritual wretchedness, the brightness and peace unknown to me, which was the lot of God's children. I prayed and besought Heaven. I cried and shed hot tears.... Suddenly it seemed to me, let me own it was revealed to me, that close to me there was a holier, more blessed, most loving personality upon which I must repose my troubled head. Jesus lay discovered in my heart as a strange, human, kindred love, as a repose, a sympathetic consolation, an unpurchased treasure, for which I was freely invited. The response of my nature was unhesitating and immediate. Jesus, from that day, to me became a reality whereon I might lean. It was an impulse then, a flood of light, love, and consolation. It is no longer an impulse now. It is a faith and principle; it is an experience verified by a thousand trials ... a character, a spirit, a holy, sacrificed, exalted self, whom I recognize as the true Son of God. According to my humble light, I have always tried to be faithful to this inspiration. I have been aided, confirmed, encouraged by many, and most of all by one. My aspiration has been not to speculate on Christ, but to be what Jesus tells us all to be.... I shall be content if what I say in these pages at all tends to give completeness to any man's ideas of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.... In the midst of these crumbling systems of Hindu error and superstition, in the midst of these cold, spectral shadows of transition, secularism, and agnostic doubt, to me Christ has been like the meat and drink of my soul. His influences have woven round me for the last twenty years or more, and, outside the fold of Christianity as I am, have formed a new fold, wherein I find many besides myself."

Chunder Sen also abundantly expressed himself concerning the Christ, His mission, and message. But to him, again, it is an Asiatic Christ; and He must be accepted in a truly Oriental, yes, even in a Hindu, way. He says:—

"It is not the Christ of the Baptists, nor the Christ of the Methodists, but the Christ sent by God, the Christ of love and meekness, of truth and self-sacrifice, whom the world delights to honour. If you say we must renounce our nationality and all the purity and devotion of eastern faith for sectarian and western Christianity, we shall say most emphatically, No. It is our Christ, Asia's Christ, you have come to return to us. The East gratefully and lovingly welcomes back her Christ. But we shall not have your Christianity, which suits not the spirit of the East. Our religion is the religion of harmony."

In further enforcement of this Oriental character he continues:—

"Was not Jesus Christ an Asiatic? Yes, and His disciples were Asiatics, and all the agencies primarily employed for the propagation of the Gospel were Asiatic. In fact, Christianity was founded and developed by Asiatics and in Asia. When I reflect on this, my love for Jesus becomes a hundred fold intensified; I feel Him nearer my heart, and deeper in my national sympathies.... And is it not true that an Asiatic can read the imageries and allegories of the Gospel, and its descriptions of the natural sceneries, of customs and manners, with greater interest and a fuller perception of their force and beauty than an European?... The more this greater fact is pondered, the less, I hope, will be the antipathy and hatred of European Christians against Oriental nationalities, and the greater the interest of the Asiatics in the teachings of Christ. And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, may learn to find harmony and unity...."

And let it not be supposed that Mr. Sen was altogether wanting in an appreciation of the higher significance and vicarious efficacy of the death of Christ. Concerning this, he observes:—

"Humanity was lost in Adam, but was recovered in Christ. He was the world's atonement....