Note.—Many anecdotes are afloat tending to prove the superior moral honesty of the Hindoos and other "heathen." As a traveler was walking the streets of an Asiatic city with one of the natives, he proposed to step into a store and purchase some article. "No," said the native: "see that chair in the door to let us know the merchant is absent."—"What!" exclaimed the traveler: "do merchants go away and leave their goods exposed in that way?"—"Yes," responded the honest native, "where there are no Christians about."
CHAPTER LII.—WHAT SHALL WE BELIEVE AND DO TO BE SAVED?
"What shall we believe and do in order to be saved?" is an all-important query, and one which daily occupies the minds of millions of earth's inhabitants of all countries and all climes. There are ten thousand answers to this question, and they are as conflicting as the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel No two religious orders, and scarcely any two religious believers agree with respect to the all-important answer to be rendered to this all-important question. To prove this, we will interrogate the disciples of all the leading religious orders who have found a place in the world's history, and compare their answers, and observe the result. Commencing in the order of time, the disciples of the Vedas will be the first we will interrogate, as they represent the oldest religious faith that has ever been promulgated in the world.
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?"
THE EGYPTIAN'S ANSWER.
Well, brother disciple of the old Egyptian religion, let us hear your answer to the question, "What must we do and believe in order to be saved?"—"Well," replies the believer in this ancient order of faith, "if you would make a sure thing of escaping the pangs of hell, and being saved in the heavenly mansion, you must not neglect to pray daily to the great God Tulis, crucified some twenty-eight hundred years ago for the sins of mankind; and, if you have committed any sin, you must pray to him to have them canceled from 'The Book of Life.' [For the ancient Egyptians believed and taught that our evil deeds, as well as our good deeds, are recorded in 'The Book of Life,' in which St. John represents (see Rev. 22-19.) our good deeds alone as being registered.] And, if you would make a sure thing of being saved in 'the day of judgment,' you must intercede with Divine Mercy to erase your evil deeds from this Book of Life, so that they will not stand against you in that solemn hour." Here we find a few of the duties enumerated which the disciples of that ancient system of religion believed and taught were necessary to be comprised in your religious creed in order to be saved in the great day of accounts.