fountainhead. It is made corrupt and deadly before it enters into the life of man, where it is often transformed into moral rottenness. This becomes in its turn, according to pantheism, a revelation of deity; so the vicious circle is complete. Personal guilt is thus a very secondary matter. It is almost impossible for a Hindu to sincerely and humbly repent before a Supreme Being for what he himself is morally. Ceremonialism is the highest law of his religion, and morality in thought and conduct is something which historically he regulates for himself. Atonement is thus transferred from a moral to a ceremonial plane and becomes only puerile in its spirit and practice. The goal of personal holiness embodied in permanent character is out of sight. The transmigration of the soul is the most that Hinduism can promise until there is final absorption and extinction in the great ocean of being. With this system as its foundation, do we wonder that the ethical code of Hinduism has gone astray to an extent hardly paralleled in religious history? It has degraded the sources of its authority by its bald pantheism and the low moral character of its gods; it has devised principles and precepts which are an offense to even the natural conscience of man; it has produced discord in moral relationships; it has confused the physical and the spiritual; it has adopted and sanctioned caste, making moral and religious differentiation a matter of blood and fate rather than of character; 1 it has shadowed family life by its treatment of women, by child-marriage and the horrors of Indian widowhood, which would still include the sati if all restraint were withdrawn. Some grave defects in The notes of failure in Hindu ethics are discovered when we point out that there must be a changed conception of God in His being, His personality, His relation to the universe, His moral character, and His supreme authority; another view of the personality and destiny of man; a recognized distinction between the moral and the immoral; a cleansing of the Augean pantheon of the gods; a recognition of righteous character combined with humility as the true sign of honorable caste in the spiritual kingdom; a discovery of the dignity of the inner graces of purity and love in contrast with empty ceremonialism; an acceptance of the practical obligations of brotherhood and humanity as regards the submerged nine tenths of India; a discrediting of asceticism as the badge of holiness and the sign of superiority; a total change in the status and treatment of woman; a suppression of childmarriage; a removal of the disabilities of widowhood; and an abolishment of the unclean scandals connected with shrines and temples. 1 See supra, pp. 241-251. Several of these may seem to be religious rather than strictly ethical features of Hinduism, but a true and vital system of ethics depends upon a religious basis. If religion goes wrong, then ethics are sure to be blighted or distorted. It is impossible, moreover, to derive the ethics of Christianity from the religion of the Hindu. No permanent or worthy system of ethics can be founded on Indian pantheism. Hindu reform movements, unless they are essentially Christian, are therefore doomed to failure. "Back to the Vedas" as the watchword of a Brahmanical revival is no doubt an attractive idea to devout Hindus, but as a method of reform it is a delusion. Nothing can grapple with the deep-rooted religious and social customs of Hinduism which does not arise in the strength of a renewed nature and in the power of a transformed character. The only twice-born men who can change the morals of India for the better are those who are born again by God's Spirit into the likeness of Christ. The strength and the weakness of Islam. 4. The ethics of Islam remain to be considered. Mohammedanism originated in an attempt at reconstruction by one who was profoundly and justly dissatisfied with the religious life of his times. His sources of information were Jewish, Christian, and heathen, for the religious life of Arabia in the seventh century was essentially heathenism. Islam is therefore a compilation of teachings and practices drawn from the above sources, and expanded under the guidance and pressure of circumstances into a system. Its strength has been that much essential truth was incorporated, chiefly adapted from Judaism; in fact, in many respects Islam is a garbled reproduction of the religion of the Old Testament, with the evangelical element left out and its ethics twisted and misinterpreted. Its weakness consists in the adoption of religious ideas and social customs which are saturated with error, loathsome with immorality and injustice, antagonistic to both natural and revealed ethics, and stale with the provincialism of the desert. compromises of the Moslem religion. Mohammed's conception of God is, after all, but a half-truth. Some attributes have been grasped boldly and firmly, but are altogether out of focus with other perfections which, although Half-truths and ethical essential elements of the divine character, have been ignored or misinterpreted. The deity presented in Islam represents an effort of the Arabian imagination to adjust God to an uncouth and immoral human environment, without too much disturbance of the moral status quo. Some characteristics of the Godhead have been exalted and emphasized to the extent of exaggeration; others have been forgotten and eliminated to the extent of detraction. The Moslem, true to the Eastern conception of absolutism, has drawn a realistic picture of the inexorable supremacy of God as the master of destiny and the universal ruler, while, on the other hand, no one can fail to perceive how offensive to a desert warrior of the faith is the Gospel of heavenly condescension as revealed in the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the doctrine of divine indwelling, or in the privileges of fellowship, communion, and personal, spiritual union of the soul of man with its God. It is true that Mohammedanism declares God to be "compassionate and merciful," but it is to sin as well as to the sinner that He offers His condoning grace. Herein is the fatal defect in the ethics of Islam. God is made to forget Himself and to become in certain respects a participator by law and by sanction in the iniquities of the Islamic code and the irregularities of Islamic practice. More than this, with bold and shocking realism, God is pictured on the throne of His majesty, in the white light of His stainless purity, as the distributor of "houris with large dark eyes," and the maker of "lofty couches" for the nameless pleasures of Paradise.1 Mohammed as a reformer was incapable of coping with his moral and social environment. The result has been that, owing partly to his imperfect vision of truth and his inability to comprehend the higher moral harmonies of righteousness, and partly through force and stress of circumstances as his leadership became more real and responsible, he compromised and adjusted both religion and morality to the degenerate spirit and life of his times. He grasped the sword; he toyed with sin; he made it easy for men to be his followers without a break with scandalous social customs; he made room for iniquities which to his moral sense at least were venial,-perhaps not even objectionable, -or which, in any event, it would cost too much to condemn; he conceived the idea of a religious headship holding at the same time the sceptre of political power. Islamic ethics far below the danger point. The results are Islamic history written in blood and tears, a militant religion with a trail of despotism covering large sections of three continents, and an ethical and social system which has not ceased to be a menace to the world. Its civil creed is powerless to lead mankind out of degradation, since it despises woman, sanctions polygamy and concubinage, allows divorce at will, and justifies slavery. Its political creed will never point the way to freedom-rather it for 1 The Koran, sura 56, verses 12-37. Cf. also sura 55, verses 54-78; sura 2, verse 25; sura 3, verse 15. |