NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.*

WE have before us two collections of essays on the non- Christian religions of the world. The first consists of six Pre- sent-Day Tracts, already published separately by the Religious Tract Society, dealing with the five chief living opponents of Christianity,—Islam, Conf ncianism, Plirsiism, Brahmanism, and Buddhism,—and lastly, with the various extinct Pagan religions. The other volume is a symposium, republished from the Homiletic Magazine, on " What is the Relation of Non-

Christian Systems to Biblical Theology ?" In the former volume a more or less complete sketch is attempted of each of the living religions discussed, while a very cursory summary is given of the numerous dead Paganisras ; but in the latter volume, only those sides of the religions which seem to have points or surfaces of contact with Christianity are described.

Each author, however, deals with his subject in his own ways and no more connection appears to exist between the articles in the symposium than between the tracts in the other volume. Archdeacon Farrar starts the symposium with a paper on " Ethnic Inspiration," striking a key-note that is hardly fol- lowed by any of the succeeding writers, who deal respectively with Egyptian, Canaanite, and Hellenic religions, the Jewish faith (from two points of view, by two authors, one a Jew and the other a Christian), Islam, Buddhism, and the Scandi- navian religion. It will be seen that Brahmanism, Zoroas- trianism, and Confucianism are not touched upon, but these omissions are supplied by the other book, the two volumes thus giving us almost a complete survey of the religions of the civilised world.

Archdeacon Farrar tells us what he means by " Ethnic Inspiration " in the following passage :-

" Clement of Alexandria is still more cosmopolitan in his theology. He had anticipated Leasing by many centuries in his conception of the education of the human race by a Divine In- structor. He does not give any definition of Inspiration'—indeed, no Christian Father has done so, nor has any definition ever been accepted by the Universal Church—but it appears from almost every page of his writings that he drew no distinction in kind between the inspiration of the sacred writers and that which he believed to have been imparted to the greatest of the Greek philosophers. In these views he was heartily followed by Origen and others of the Greek Fathers, who believed in the reality of ethnic inspiration, if by that phrase we mean to imply that some of the greatest and wisest of the heathen not only groped after God, but really found Him—that they were sincere in their prayers for a Divine Illumination, and that those prayers were not left unheard."

This last statement is surely safer than any dogmatism about all religions having been developed from one monotheistic form, or all monotheistic religions having been evolved from fetichism. There seems to be—or to be likely to be discovered— no sufficient evidence to demonstrate either of those alternative propositions, or any proposition intermediate between them; but there is multitudinous evidence that the conception of one

Almighty God has dawned upon the minds of individual men in all ages, in whatever theological surroundings their lives -have been set. This theory seems more reasonable than to regard any monotheistic traces in heathen religions as simply due to remnants of traditional belief handed down from our first parents, as would appear to be the belief of Dr. Murray Mitchell, who, in his tract on " Ancient Paganism," writes :— 4‘ He must be a very narrow-minded Christian who looks on Pagan systems as merely masses of unrelieved falsehood. Why should they be so ? The Christian believes, and many who do not call themselves Christians believe with him, that there

was given to man a primeval revelation ; is it probable that no fragments of it have been borne down the stream of time P" Dr. Mitchell, who objects to the phrase "ethnic inspiration," as being likely to be "misunderstood and misapplied," would, we suppose, not admit that subsequent to the "primeval reve- lation" God has revealed himself to any people at all except Jews or Christians. Again, we are rather surprised that of these writers, who almost all of them endeavour to show the superiority of Christianity to the particular religion of which they treat, none deals adequately, if at all, with the Christian doctrine of the communion of the Holy Spirit—with the inter-

• (L) Present-Day Tracts on the Non-Christian Religions of the World. By Sir William Muir, Professor Legge, LL.D., the Rove. J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D., and H. R. fte)nolde, D.D. Lmdon Religious Tract Society. 1887.—(2.) Non. Biblical Systems of Religion. A Symposium. By Pen. Archdeacon. Farrar, DD., and others. London: J. Nisbet and 0o. 1987.

course between a personal God and each individual soul— which is surely as distinctive and important a truth of Christianity as any other. For instance, Professor Radford Thomson, in his article on "Positivism as a Religion," writes :

" The Positivist Deity is an abstraction towards which we cannot feel those sentiments which go out towards a living, conscious, personal being Only a Supreme and Perfect Object of worship can issue a law which deserves universal and unhesitating obedience, or can promulgate a gospel which shall bring joy and hope to all human hearts."

In this statement we have the doctrine of the Father and the Son, but not the Holy Spirit; nothing is said as to the daily inspiration and help which a man needs in his attempts to make perfect his obedience. The omission is analogous to the other omission to recognise the capacity of the natural, heathen man to receive a revelation direct from God.

We have only room to say a word or two on each of the separate articles. Canon Rawlinson, writing on the religion of the Egyptians, refers to inordinate pride as a natural result of the system, and quotes in illustration the effusive self-praise often found in inscriptions on tombstones ; but do they in this greatly differ from the laudatory epitaphs on Christain tombs? The fact that the Egyptian epitaphs are written in the first person, while the Christian may more often be written in the third person, makes no essential difference, but is merely a matter of style or custom. Dr. Wright, in his paper on the Canaanite religions, quotes and adopts Professor Sayee's explanation of the sacrifice to Baal of the eldest son, thus :-

" It was no sign of savagery or brutality, but of profound self- sacrifice, which led the worshipper to give even more than his own life to the offended gods." But when Dr. Wright goes on

to speak of the corresponding sacrifice of the daughter to worse than death, instead of adopting the same explanation, he says of this practice It was not religion. It was only ritual uncon- nected with morality." Surely both practices were more than ritual—they were the natural, though extreme, outcome of an imperfect religion and an imperfect morality—a religion which- believes in a God who can be appeased by mere punishment, and a morality which teaches that there is real merit in self- sacrifice inflicted for its own sake. Professor Edwin Johnson writes an interesting paper briefly touching on the apparent analogies between Hellenic religions myths and Christian ideas,—analogies which he suggests are " resolvable into identities of intuition." He considers that " beneath all historical changes" in religions "there ever remain some unchanging elements. To detect these is to get at the heart of the matter, for ideally or spiritually speaking, there is but one religion." He also observes,—" The mere examination of the rich religious vocabulary of the Greeks will, of itself, teach how mistaken it is to assume, as has been often done, that Nature worship,' rather than spiritual experience,' lies at the foundation of their religions." The paper on " The Jewish Faith," by Rabbi Emanuel, is the only article written by a follower of the religion which he discusses, and is perhaps the most interesting in the two books. Its tendency may be partially seen from the following extracts :—" The God of Israel" accepts " no ransom except the ransom of remorse and return to right-doing." " Worship was to be manifested mainly in the one form known to the ancient world,—the presentation of offerings. But it is to be noted that sacrifices for sin to God were to be preceded by confession (Lev. xvi., 21), for sins to man by restitu- tion (Lev. v., 23) while the whole institution of sacrifices is introduced in such a way as represents it rather as regulating an existing practice than as establishing it as God's chosen form of service (Lev. i., 2)." This seems more

reasonable than the view maintained by Dr. Mitchell (in the tract on " Ancient Paganism "), that "the whole ceremonial worship was one vast prophecy of good things to come, and recognised by thoughtful men as such." After tracing the development of modern Judaism, Rabbi Emanuel concludes with the hope that the sister religions, Judaism and Christianity, may henceforth regard one another as "friends and fellow

workers, differing in very important principles and practices, but holding in common other principles of priceless worth, proclaiming together God as the Father of all his children, striving together, though by different methods, to bring all men to the knowledge of the Most High." Mr. Nicolson also writes a paper (at the end of the "Symposium ") on" TheReligion of Israel," which he shows, in an argument unnecessarily diffuse, and in parts not altogether clear, to be the only non- Christian religion which is "wholly in harmony with the moral plane,"—the plane on which we see " moral liberty and law in close relation, but yet in polar opposition to one another." The United States Minister to Denmark, Mr. Rasmus Ander- son, contributes an appreciative account of the Scandinavian religion, which, he says, "certainly inspired the ancient Scan- dinavians to live an upright and brave life." Dr. Mitchell, on the

other hand, thinks it only engendered "a kind of wild,beast ferocity." He also says, "All hopefulness seems banished from this faith ;" but Mr. Anderson argues that the Scandinavians

believed in a final victory over evil, for " after Ragnarok Odin, Thor, Prey, &c., are no more as individual divinities, but they are all united in that supreme being; that one who is greater

than Odin, the one whom Hyndla's lay in the Elder Edda dare

not name, and whom few look far enough to see When that mighty one comes to the great judgment, then the cursed Nidlung, the gnawer in the dark, who has so long tormented the souls of the wicked, sinks, together with all pain and evil, into that unfathomable abyss never to rise again." The way in which the Norsemen's- religion naturally rose out of their

surroundings, which led them to dwell "with a peculiar intensity on the tragedy of Nature," is well shown by Mr. Anderson. This has been vividly summed up in Michael Field's Canute the Great :- " Thor.—A gentle worship is not for a people Whose mothers nurse them in a shaggy land Of pines and scarped rocks, and howling wolves ; Whose fathers row their children out to sea, And make the waves their playfellows, the storm Their foster-sire ; who all their after-days Dwell in the whirl of Nature.

Canute.— I am back With my old gods when there's a mighty wind That sets my locks a-sail."

Sir W. Muir handles Islam in both these volumes. In the shorter paper he compares the teaching of Christ and

Mahommed, showing that on the religions side we see "fear with the Moslem worshipper rather than love predominating," and on the moral side, " the fatal demerit of Islam, viewed in its social and political aspect, is that, tied and encrusted round as it is by the text of the Coran, progress and adaptation to varying circumstance are unattainable." In the longer tract he gives a clear and generally impartial sketch of the rise and decline of Islam, showing that Islam was propagated mainly by the sword ; and at the withdrawal of the Moslem arms the faith also commonly retired, and that the ordinances of Islam, those especially having respect to the female sex, have induced an inherent weakness which depresses the social system and retards its progress. He admits that " when once firmly rooted, as in India and China, Islam may survive and even flourish." In India, anyhow, he might have added, it seems to advance at least as fast as, if not faster than, the population. As regards Africa, his conclusion seems very inadequate :--" Excepting some barbarous zones in Africa, which have been raised thereby a

step [surely more than a step], above the grovelling level of

fetichism, the faith has in modern times made no advance worth mentioning." The intemperance and sexual immorality of professing Christians are, he says, "the strongest weapons in the armoury of Islam." If it be true that in the latter respect Mahommedans are in a sense on a higher average level than Christians, it must be remembered that they only attain it by degrading a whole sex beyond all hope of elevation.

As regards total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, it will be interesting to see, when a sufficient time has elapsed, whether the Salvation Army, which almost makes teetotalism essential to Christianity, meets with more success than other missionary bodies in converting the Mahommedans of India.

In the " Symposium," Dr. Rhys Davids writes on Buddhism, and in the " Tracts," Dr. Reynolds, the Principal of Cheshunt College. The former only endeavours "to compare the Buddhism of the Buddhist Scriptures with Biblical theology." Dr. Reynolds, on the other hand, goes near attempting what Dr. Davids calls " a colossal, perhaps an impossible task,— to compare all Buddhism with all Christianity;" and as a natural consequence, the tract is in parts confusing. For instance, referring to the legend that Gautama ascended in a trance to Heaven and there communed with his mother, he says, " Such a conception seems to allow that there was a continuity of existence and consciousness possible to Buddhist saints believed in even -within the orthodox communion;" but he omits to notice that this legend is absent from the earliest books, so that little argument can be based upon it as to orthodox Buddhist doctrine on the after-life. Dr. Reynolds finds it difficult to believe that "a formula of utter annihila- tion" could ever have made such progress among a people

whose former belief in transmigration " did not repudiate the

idea of soul;" and he mentions an explanation of Dr. Davide (to which, however, he does not give the reference) to the effect "that the passion of universal benevolence involved. in the closing-up of one only of the hitherto endless sources of misery was a sufficient motive for entering on the path to Nirvana,. even though the Buddhist disciple should hereafter be uncon-

scious of the advantage he had conferred upon the universe by his non-existence." In the article before us, Dr. Davids takes a different line, and after explaining, what he and Olde,nbem have taken pains to prove from the Buddhist scriptures, that Nirvana or Arahatship meant a " state of mind to be gained or enjoyed in this present life," and that Nirvana did not (primarily, at any rate) refer to the after-life, he proceeds to say :—" It is strange that there should

be popular writers who describe the Buddhist ideal as an absorption into nothing." But does Dr. Davids wish now to modify what he wrote in his popular manual on Buddhism (p. 113, 1886 edition),—namely, that when the Arahat (or one

who has attained, Nirvana) dies, " there will then be nothing

left to bring about the rise of a new individual ; and the Arahat will be no longer alive or existent, in any sense at all; he will have reached Parinibbitna, complete extinction "? For if the Buddhist's ideal is Nirvana, and if Nirvana is

followed by non-existence "in any sense at all," we fail to see that this is practically different from saying that his ideal is " absorption into nothing." Does Dr. Davids now agree with Oldenberg, who quotes Buddha himself as saying, " I have not told thee whether the saint lives beyond death or not because the knowledge of such things does not conduce to progress in holiness, because it does not contribute to peace and enlightenment," and shows that while Nirvana is followed by no rebirth into this world or into any transitory existence involving a. continued cycle of recurring births and deaths, yet it does not- follow that the saint when he passes away has not (what we should call) spiritual existence P We notice that Dr. Reynolds remarks that " the Buddhist was to extinguish

all desire, including the desire for the welfare of others," thus falling into what Dr. Davids characterises " as a common• blunder in English treatises on Buddhists," arising from a mistranslation of a word which means " craving," " lust," and. not simply " desire " Both these articles fail to discuss the practical side of Buddhism, and we believe that no satisfactory book has yet been published on the question,—What is the

Buddhism of the present day in any particular place (Ceylon,, for instance, where the purest form survives to some extent), and how much of the original Buddhism, which is so fascinating a literary study, is believed in. by, or influences the lives of, the common people of that country P The Bishop of Colombo,.

in the Nineteenth Century, deals partially but inadequately with this question ; his main conclusions have been already quoted in these pages (Spectator, July 7th), but they require to be illustrated and expanded.

In the " Tracts," Zoroastrianism and Brahmanism are described by Dr. Murray Mitchell, who also writes the paper on " Ancient Paganism" to which we have already referred The two former tracts are full of information, and give as complete an account as could be expected in the space, of those two religions, including some remarks as to the present aspect towards Christianity of the Parsis and Hindus. The third, tract goes over far too large a ground to give a satisfactory view of the whole, and is in parts hardly more than a list of some prominent points in the several religions which deserve attention, and some of which on examination may perhaps turn out to be somewhat different from what they are here made to appear. Professor Legge's tract on " Confucianism " appears to us, on the whole, the best in the volume, being written by a man who not only knows his subject, but seems scrupulously careful not to depreciate but to make the best of everything that is good in the religion of the Chinese and the people themselves. He says :-

" I think that the evidence of facts bears out the conclusion as to the superiority of Christianity to which I have come. It is, indeed, an eternal truth that by their fruits ' we know both men and systems ; but though I have tried, over a long series of years, to weigh the moral condition of the Chinese people as com- pared with our own, and that of other nominally Christian peoples, I have felt the difficulty of doing so in an even balance, and there has frequently occurred to me the warning of the Sermon on the Mount, Judge not, that ye be not judged.' "