p. 11 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 18. (5/10/1910)

Earlier text: Remember May 19

India in 1909

By GEO. F. ENOCH

(From Our Own Correspondent)

(Concluded from last week)

Religion in India — The New Theology and Christians in India — Movements within Hinduism.

Religion in India During 1909

The same causes which have affected India politically have affected her religiously, only in a different and less degree. The firm hold which the political ideas of the West have taken on the educated community, has not been duplicated in regard to the religion of the West. Very few of those who have received the benefits of higher education have become Christian. Various reasons might be given for this. First, religion is a matter of the heart more than the head. Again, Hinduism, like so many great religions, is very elastic, having power to adjust itself to a great variety of religious concepts. Last but not least, the education which is now coming from the West is more agnostic than Christian. Under these circumstances it is not a thing to be wondered at that young, educated India seems rapidly drifting toward the rocks of agnosticism and atheism. Hinduism, with all its defects, was better than this, therefore the last state of educated India promises to be worse than the first.

The New Theology and Indian Christians

Saddest of all, this tendency is not confined to non-Christian India. During the last months of the year, there was great commotion among the various Christian communities, over some of the same theological questions that are agitating the West. One of the oldest and most respected missions published in a vernacular paper of theirs, circulating largely among all Christian communities, a series of articles which followed the latest brand of “Higher Criticism” imported direct from New England, such as denying the veracity of much in both the Old and the New Testament records, the virgin birth, the miracles of our Lord, and even His resurrection. To their credit it must be said that the Christian community itself seems intensely loyal to the old landmarks, well-nigh rebelling against these teachers of new doctrines, tho they be men of kindly lives and great influence.

In India there are great defects in the operation of missions, which are becoming more apparent as the years pass. The questions of self-support and self-propagation are pressing to the front.

One movement toward unity and — perhaps more properly speaking — confederation, has been to the front during the entire year. In South India more success has attended this movement than elsewhere. The United Church of South India has been launched, consisting largely of an organic union of various Presbyterian and Congregational churches of America and England. Great effort is being made to bring all the Protestant churches into such relationship. It is true that the differences between many sects of the West which have arisen largely from historical reasons, find no response in the heart of the Indian. The doctrinal differences do not have the tendency to make themselves felt in the Indian churches. The one feature of this movement to confederate that is to be deprecated is the tendency to parcel out the territory, and speak of it as tho it were all under private control. This attitude is sure to cause trouble in the future.

The year 1909 was not marked by great accessions from Hinduism. The so-called “mass” movements of a few years back seem to have nearly ceased. Those taking part in these movements were from among the depressed classes who have been kept in a servile condition for centuries, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by becoming Christians. It has often turned out that these so-called converts have considered their baptismal day as the height of perfection. Such an attitude makes the after life anything but satisfactory, and brings in its train a multitude of troubles for the missionary. Some missions whose financial policy is largely dependent on the report of great accessions annually are in hard straits for the money necessary to operate their work. Those enthusiastic men who predict that India is soon to become Christian have neither the proper understanding of the Word of God nor the sense of facts.

Movements within Hinduism

The Arya, Brahmo, and Prathna Samaj’s, and theosophy, are all movements among educated Hindus which show the ability of Hinduism to dispossess itself of its grosser forms of idolatry and superstition and adapt itself to the new situation. Mrs. Besant, with quite a following of educated Hindus, has recently inaugurated a scheme for a great university at Benares which the founders hope will be modeled after Eastern ideals rather than those of the West.

The forces from beneath are fanning the flames of dissatisfaction and unrest as in other parts of the world, and India will doubtless add her quota to the scenes of strife and confusion of the last days. When Christianity has failed to CONVERT even a majority of the people of the West, it is surely evident that our hope is not that of converting India, but rather that of saving as many as possible from the dreadful wreck which lies just before us. GEO. F. ENOCH

The Power and Peril of Suggestion

By Editor

Thomas Jefferson uttered a splendid sentiment which ought to be taken home to the hearts of lovers of freedom, when he said, “God Himself will not save men against their wills.”

After a year’s test in San Francisco, Bishop Nichols of the Episcopal Church declares that the Emmanuel cure is a failure under the conditions followed. He says: “We discovered that it was impossible to secure beneficial results by placing patients in a psychopathic ward associated with a hospital. All the depressing influences of the hospital bore down upon them. The constant atmosphere of suffering made a cure impossible, and finally we were forced to the conclusion that we had failed.” But when Christ heals He can heal even in hospitals. Of course the Emmanuel Movement is based largely on suggestion, and with a thousand antagonistic suggestions it certainly must fail.

The “Boston Medical and Surgical Journal” declares that the mainspring of hypnotism and psychotherapy is suggestion. The writer advises at first verbal suggestion; but when this fails, hypnotism. To our minds, it is wicked — the use of hypnotism under any circumstances. God did not design that the human mind should be made absolutely subject to any creature whatsoever; and the fact that it is made so, weakens the will, and makes the yielding to suggestion easier the next time. Of this, baleful influences, human and superhuman, take advantage to enslave the soul forever.

A despatch from Rome, Italy, dated April 23, says that Cardinal Merry Del Val, the pope’s secretary of state, has ordered copies of every paper in America which comments on the late incident between Colonel Roosevelt and the Vatican. It is felt in Rome that the comments have been highly favorable to the Vatican, and that the affair will serve to strengthen the position of the Catholic Church in America. Just as tho criticism favorable or unfavorable, just as tho popularity or unpopularity, should decide the orthodoxy of a religion!

Leon Denis, a Frenchman, has written a book in which he contends that Joan of Arc was a Spiritualist medium. The reviewer of the book in Annales des Sciences Psychiques, according to the Literary Digest, while criticizing some expressions used in the book, speaks of it favorably, and says that upon that subject Catholics and Spiritualists could join hands. There seems to be no question but that the “maid of Orleans” was led by spirits. Of this she speaks repeatedly.

Robert Lee Carter in “The Constitution” declares that Mr. Bryan will withdraw from politics and will give more time to religious work. This will be largely, doubtless, in undenominational religious addresses. He has been doing much in this way for the last two or three years, and his services are in great demand, not only in this country but in England. We hope that if he gives himself to religious work, he will find the great constitutional principles of religion, and hold to them.

It seems from a despatch from Atlantic City, New Jersey, of April 23, that the Atlantic Coast had been shaken somewhat. The weather bureau reported a series of earthquakes beginning at 7 o’clock and lasting until 9.20, causing windows to rattle from one end of the city to the other. Some say that the shakings began at 4 o’clock in the morning.

In North Carolina, April 15, a Negro by the name of Green Hughes died at the age of 110 years. He was an ex-slave, and the son of a Negro who was the slave of George Washington. He died at the home of his youngest son, who was himself seventy-five years old.

Reports are that London society has been driven wild by the barefoot dance mania. And one of the latest is that in one instance the dance was for the entertainment of “men only” and was given in a “non-conformist church.”

April 23 the entire commercial section of Lake Charles, Louisiana, was destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated as over $3,000,000.

An Utterly Wrong Conception of Christianity

We clip the following from a Sunday paper:

“Dr. Lyman Abbott is frequently denominated a Unitarian, but his own confession of faith just printed in The Outlook does not sound like a Unitarian’s utterance. ‘I believe that the supremest manifestation of God in human history is found in the life and character of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, and the world’s Messiah. I believe that He lived, suffered, died, rose from the dead, and lives in the church and leads His people, a personal living presence as truly in the world to-day as in the world nineteen centuries ago.’”

All of which sounds fairly good, and yet one of the common theories of the present day is that every one is a son of God. Dr. Abbott very sedulously avoids saying that Christ is the Saviour of the world, the One who suffered and died to save men from sin. Many of those who deny the literal bodily resurrection will admit that He arose from the dead; or in other words interpret the resurrection as meaning leaving His body here upon the earth and ascending in His soul or Spirit to heaven. Orthodox Christianity takes Jesus Christ as the vicarious Redeemer of the world, of each and every man, not simply a leader in the church, not simply a supreme manifestation of God in human history, but the One who “saves to the uttermost” all that come to God through Him. From what we have heard Dr. Abbott say in his own lectures regarding the Bible and revelation at the present time, his words above quoted mean no more than what many Unitarians could say, unless he has wonderfully changed.

The Late Justice Brewer

By Editor

We are glad that there are some voices that can speak out their honest convictions altho they may not be popular. The late Justice Brewer has been very highly lauded all over the land since his death, but The California Weekly, in a little note, says:

“Let the truth be told. He was a kindly man and a good, but was not great, and he watched his political p's and q's all his life as carefully as any politician in the state whence he came. Brewer's path to eminence was not differently blazed from that of most other jurists of his time; and if, in his utterances and decisions, he held the rights of property superior to the rights of man, it was because it was in that school that he was nurtured and through that influence that he was advanced. Yet he would not consciously have reasoned to a false conclusion. He merely leaned as a judge as he was inclined as a twig of the law.”

This, it seems to us, is a fair estimate of the character of Justice Brewer, as was well shown in his religious predilections. He is the author of the famous—it ought to be infamous—Trinity Church decision of Feb. 29, 1892. Against the decision itself we have nothing to say; but against the course of reasoning on the religious side of the question, which led to that decision, we know of no document which has ever issued from the courts that is more out of harmony with the rights of man than that. Sometimes that decision has been called “The Christian Nation Decision.” As such it is used by National Reformers at the present time. Judge Brewer “found” that all the various charters granted by rulers of medieval times, Catholic, Protestant, Puritan, Episcopalian, all the various church and state remnants which were brought over the sea into the colonies, went to prove that this is a Christian nation, and as a Christian nation Christian institutions of course ought to be regarded, and among the Christian institutions are the Sunday laws. A truly great mind, in weighing all the various religious documents which Justice Brewer reviewed, would have seen the inevitable conflict which grew out of the crystallizing religious opinion in civil law. He would have seen that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as the utterances of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and others, constituted a square break from medieval times; and he would have decided that this Government was not a Christian nation, but a nation for men, for all men, in which there could be, so far as men's laws are concerned, absolute freedom for all sects and beliefs. But Judge Brewer followed his early teachings not alone in this utterance, but in other utterances he showed the same tendency and weakness. It will be ill for the country indeed if his decisions are taken as interpretations of fundamental law.

In Turkey

Reports disagree as to the tendency of the modern movement in Turkey and its bearing on religious liberty. Prof. G. A. Smith, however, thinks that it means “a change of the whole atmosphere in which Islam has lived and flourished for centuries.” Some indication of the greatness of the change is seen in the fact that when the American College for Girls in Constantinople began its new school year, among the thirty Turkish students enrolled were five whose entire expenses are paid by the government, which asks of them in return nothing beyond a pledge that they will become teachers for five years after their graduation.—The Present Truth.

Sunday-Law Enforcement in Arkansas

By Leslie Littell

The Sunday laws of Arkansas have been construed to prohibit the sale of a cigar, a glass of lemonade, or a piece of pie, etc. The enforcement of the Sunday law is in evidence all over the state. In Benton County all the towns but one have the Sunday lid down tight. The judge instructed the grand jury to indict all “Sabbath-breakers.” Indictments were brought for selling meals, bread, milk, cigars, etc. One man was fined $3.25 for stretching a single wire four rods across a gap in his fence caused by a horse breaking in on Sunday, and $3.25 for straightening up the plants the horse had rolled down.

It seems about time to resurrect the old blue law which fined a man for kissing his wife on Sunday.

The clerk of the supreme court, in a letter addressed to me, made the following statement:

“The statute, however, is very plain, tho it is violated openly, almost everywhere. Its enforcement depends upon the sentiment of the people.”

Sunday laws, not having truth or justice for a foundation, can only be enforced by “the sentiment of the people.” But “the sentiment of the people” nailed Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to the cross.

LESLIE LITTELL.

Hardy, Ark.

War and Competition

LAWYER JOHNSON of Philadelphia, one of the greatest trust attorneys in America, did not endeavor to excuse all of the wrong-doings of the Standard Oil Company in his defense before the United States Supreme Court. He declared that what General Sherman said about war was literally true of competition, and asked, “Is there a kind of soft competition, a Pickwickian competition? a kind of kid glove variety where they just compete so nicely that it won’t hurt?” And he continued: “General Sherman used a word in describing what war is. I won’t use the word in your honors’ presence, but that is what competition is.” And there is a great deal of truth in the saying; and especially when the competition is between men who are bound to win at any cost, it certainly takes the character of war.

We have a good deal said about humanizing war; but old Lord Fisher, who has had much to do in the reorganization of the British navy, truly stated in The Hague Peace Conference of 1899 the true character of war. “The humanization of war? You might as well talk of humanizing hell. . . . As if war could be civilized! If I am in command when war breaks out, I shall issue as my orders, ‘The essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility, hit first, hit hard, hit anywhere.’”

And that is about what competition is many times with the trusts. A great sad fact is that the consumer is generally the one who gets hit.

Personal Liberty

By Euph.

THE folly of the license system reminds me of Bridget, who had been told by her mistress to scrub the kitchen floor. Opening the door a while afterward, she found Bridget with the water two or three inches deep, and mopping for dear life, while the water still flowed from the faucet.

“Why don’t you turn off the faucet, Bridget?” exclaimed the lady.

“Sure, ma’am, it’s meself that hasn’t toime, the water kapes me a-moppin’ so fast.”

It is said that in some insane asylums this same idea is utilized to find out whether patients that have been improving are sufficiently sane to be allowed to go home. They take them to a close room with a bare floor, turn on the faucet, and give them a mop, and tell them to mop it dry. If they have sense enough to be allowed to go home they turn off the faucet at once. If not, they mop away until taken to their ward again. Whenever the time comes that we are really sane, we will turn off the faucet of this traffic. How silly it is for us to go mopping away with missions and orphan asylums and Keeley cures—and be content with that—when we have it within our power to turn off the whole tide of drunkenness, disease, and crime by abolishing the traffic itself!

O, but, you say, you must not violate personal liberty. How incongruous seems this cry of personal liberty from the lips of the saloon-keeper! As another has well said, if liberty has fallen so low that her defenders are the class of men who debauch the manhood, the womanhood, and the civilization of this country, God pity liberty!—Euph.

Shiloh: the Man of Sorrows

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

Chapter X. A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

“LIST, Joseph, thou carpenter of Nazareth, I have somewhat to say unto thee!” The venomous eyes of Shaphan the rabbi glowered ominously.

“Peace be unto thee, O rabbi. What hast thou to say unto me?” questioned Joseph, stepping from the tent, wherein sat a beautiful woman. “What news bringest thou? for of a truth the rabbi should be the bearer of good tidings,” and the man glanced suspiciously and uneasily at his guest.

“Thou knowest I am a teacher in Israel,” began the rabbi pompously, “and thou rememberest that I have heretofore taken it upon myself to reprove the young Lad who calleth thee father—albeit they tell me the Child is none of thine. The lad alway hath appeared to account Himself superior to His elders. Thou thyself knowest that many a time I have rebuked Him for refusing to observe the traditions of the fathers. Tell me, verily, is this Child thine—thine own Son?”

“Nay, O rabbi, He is not mine own Son,” admitted Joseph uneasily, while his kindly dark eyes were fixed upon the ground; “but He is the Son of His mother, and she loveth Him.”

“Yes, verily, all sons be the sons of their mothers; but there be some lewd women in Israel; and I have noticed that thy young wife is beautiful; how knowest thou—”

“Spare me, O rabbi, spare me!” exclaimed the carpenter almost fiercely, throwing out his hands convulsively, and grasping the rich robe of his guest.

“Of a truth, O Joseph, it behoveth thee not to forget thy dignity, and the honor thou shouldst pay to me—a rabbi,” interrupted Shaphan scornfully. “If I cause thee pain, it is for thy best good. Forget not that thou art a son of Israel, and if I mistake not, even of the kingly tribe of Judah, through whom the Messiah cometh,—Jehovah grant His coming be not long delayed, when the minions of Israel shall be free from the oppression of the Romans. But verily, I came not to discuss or to theorize; my errand is a painful one,” he whined with mock sadness, “one which it seemeth to me well to make known unto the mother of the Child, as well as unto thee. Shall we not go into thy tent?” and the rabbi rudely thrust his head between the white curtains.

“It shall be as thou wilt, O rabbi; but I entreat thee speak not roughly unto the mother of the Lad.”

With a withering look of scorn, Shaphan preceded his host into the tent. “I desire not to cause sadness in the heart of so lovely a woman,” began the rabbi, with an unpleasant leer; “but as thou knowest, I have great concern for thy Son; and to-night,” he continued, lowering his voice ominously, “to-night I saw Him wandering to the mountains alone,—nay, do not interrupt me,—and I determined to follow Him. He will not submit to be led by His teachers, as thou knowest, and refuseth to listen to the traditions of the fathers. So I said, ‘I will follow the Lad; it may hap He keepeth the company of evil-doers;’ and well was I rewarded for my pains. Thy Son, O Nazarene,” turning impressively toward Joseph, “thy Son keepeth the company of robbers and villains! In the mountains I saw Him giving bread to one who called himself Barabbas,—without doubt the fierce young robber whose lawless hand infesteth Galilee, and for whose ungodly head Antipas offereth large rewards. It would be well, O Nazarene, to look to thy Son!”

As no reply was given to this tirade, the rabbi continued:

“Why should bread be given to one whom even the idolatrous Romans account accursed? Pray what is the duty of a true son of Israel?”

Rabbi Shaphan paused for a moment, as if overcome by the power of his own eloquence. His host and hostess were silent, as if they were not able to answer such words of wisdom. The richly robed rabbi was apparently gratified over their evident embarrassment. Again he repeated the question with impressive dignity: “What, O Nazarene, is the duty of a true son of Israel?”

At that moment the curtain of the tent was softly lifted, and a slight figure stood in the doorway. The bright rays of the full moon streamed in through the parted drapery, and fell upon the bared head of the Lad, as in a voice soft and gentle He undertook to answer the question of the haughty rabbi. But there was no bitterness nor exultation in His tones, only gentleness and meekness and reverence, as He repeated the question:

“What, O rabbi, is the duty of a son of Israel? ‘Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him? Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am. . . . If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drouth, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.’”

With a vicious growl, like that of a maddened animal, Rabbi Shaphan gathered his rich robes about his lean form, and arose to leave the tent. But he was not content to depart without first hurling a word of venom like the sting of a poisoned arrow into the already sensitive and wounded hearts of his hearers:

“Who art Thou, Lad, that Thou shouldst prate against Thine elders and thy betters? for all Nazareth and Galilee know that Thou art the Son of Mary—but who knoweth Thy father! Yet Thou scornest me, Shaphan, a master in Israel, a man who pointeth with pride to his father and his mother, and sayeth, ‘Behold, I be not born of fornication!’”

The crimson flush which suffused the delicate cheek of the Lad, told Shaphan that the cruel dart he had aimed with such fiendish care, had not fallen upon a callous or an unfeeling heart.

But no word escaped the lips of the Child, the cheek of Mary turned white as the snows of Lebanon; for the words of Simeon the prophet, which already had begun to be fulfilled, rang in her ears:

“Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.”

(To be continued)

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