Chapter X: Appendix (3)

The vocative of +Dyaus+, having the circumflex, is one of those linguistic gems which one finds now and then in the Rig-Veda, and which by right ought to have a place of honor in a Museum of Antiquities. It is a unique form. It occurs but once in the Rig-Veda, never again, as far as we know at present, in the whole of Vedic literature, and yet it is exactly that form which a student of language would expect who is familiar with the working of the laws of accent in Sanskrit and in Greek. Without a thorough knowledge of these laws, the circumflexed vocative in Sanskrit, +Dyaûs+, corresponding to Greek Ζεῦ, would seem a mere anomaly, possibly an accidental coincidence, whereas in reality it affords the most striking proof of the organic working of the laws of accent, and at the same time an unanswerable testimony in favor of the genuineness of the ancient text of the Rig-Veda.

The laws of accent bearing on this circumflexed vocative are so simple that I thought they would have been understood by everybody. As this does not seem to have been the case, I add a few explanatory remarks.

It was Benfey who, as on so many other points, so on the accent of vocatives, was the first to point out (in 1845) that it was a fundamental law of the Aryan language to place the acute on the first syllable of all vocatives, both in the singular, and in the dual and plural.[9] In Sanskrit this law admits of no exception; in Greek and Latin the rhythmic accent has prevailed to that extent that we only find a few traces left of the original Aryan accentuation. It is well known that in vocatives of nouns ending in _ius_, the ancient Romans preserved the accent on the first syllable, that they said _Vírgili_, _Váleri_, from _Virgílius_ and _Valérius_. This statement of Nigidius Figulus, preserved by Gellius, though with the remark that in his time no one would say so, is the only evidence of the former existence of the Aryan law of accentuation in Latin. In Greek the evidence is more considerable, but the vocatives with the accent on the first syllable are, by the supreme law of the rhythmic accent in Greek, reduced to vocatives, drawing back their accent as far as they can, consistently with the law which restricts the accent to the last three syllables. Thus while in Sanskrit a word like Ἀγαμέμνων would in the vocative retract the accent on the first syllable Ἄγαμεμνον, the Greek could do no more than say Ἀγάμεμνον with the accent on the antepenultimate. In the same manner the vocative of Ἀριστοτέλης, can only be Ἀριστότελες, whereas in Sanskrit it would have been Ἄριστοτελες.

Here, however, the question arises, whether in words like Ἀγαμέμνων[10] and Ἀριστοτέλης[11] the accent was not originally on the antepenultimate, but drawn on the penultimate by the rhythmic law. This is certainly the case in ἥδιον, as the vocative of ἡδίων, for we know that both in Sanskrit and Greek, comparatives in ιων retract their accent as far as possible, and have it always on the first syllable in Sanskrit, always on the penultimate in Greek, if the last syllable is long. But, _cessante causâ cessat effectus_, and therefore the accent goes back on the antepenultimate, not only in the vocative, but likewise in the nom. neuter ἥδιον.

It is possible that the same process may explain the vocative δέσποτα from δεσπότης, if we compare Sanskrit compounds with +pati+, such as +dâsápati+, +gấspati+, +dámpati+, which leave the accent on the first member of the compound. In Δημήτηρ also all becomes regular, if we admit the original accentuation to have been Δήμητηρ, changed in Δημήτηρ, but preserved in the genitive Δήμητρος, and the vocative Δήμητερ.[12]

But there are other words in which this cannot be the case, for instance, ἄδελφε, πόνηρε, μόχθερε from ἀδελφός, πονηρός, μοχθηρός. Here the accent is the old Aryan vocatival accent. Again, in πατήρ, πατέρα, Sk. +pitấ+, +pitáram+, in μήτηρ, μητέρα, Sk. +mâtấ+, +mâtáram+, in θυγάτηρ, θυγατέρα, Sk. +duhitấ+, +duhitáram+, the radical accent was throughout on the suffix +tár+, nor would the rules of the rhythmic accent in Greek prevent it from being on the antepenultimate in the accusative. The fact therefore that it is retracted on the penultimate and antepenultimate in the vocative, shows clearly that we have here, too, the last working of the original Aryan accentuation. The irregular accent in the nom. sing. of μήτηρ, instead of μητήρ, is probably due to the frequent use of the vocative (an explanation which I had adopted before I had seen Benfey’s essay), and the same cause may explain the apparently irregular accentuation in θύγατρα, by the side of θυγατέρα, in θύγατρες, and θύγατρας. Similar vocatives with retracted accent are δᾶερ, nom. δαήρ, εἴνατερ, nom. εἰνάτηρ, γύναι, nom. γυνή, σῶτερ, nom. σωτήρ, ἄνερ, nom. ἀνήρ, Ἄπολλον, nom. Ἀπόλλων, Πόσειδον, nom. Ποσειδῶν, Ἥρακλες, nom. Ἡρακλῆς.

We have thus established the fact that one feature of the primitive Aryan accentuation, which consisted in the very natural process of placing the high accent on the first syllable of vocatives, was strictly preserved in Sanskrit, while in Greek and Latin it only left some scattered traces of its former existence. Without the light derived from Sanskrit, the changes in the accent of vocatives in Greek and Latin would be inexplicable, they would be, what they are in Greek grammar, mere anomalies; while, if placed by the side of Sanskrit, they are readily recognized as what they really are, remnants of a former age, preserved by frequent usage or by an agent whom we do not like to recognize, though we cannot altogether ignore him,--viz. chance.

Taking our position on the fact that change of accent in the vocative in Greek is due to the continued influence of an older system of Aryan accentuation, we now see how the change of nom. Ζεύς into voc. Ζεῦ, and of nom. +Dyaús+, into voc. +Dyaû́s+, rests on the same principle. In Sanskrit the change, though at first sight irregular, admits of explanation. What we call the circumflex in Sanskrit, is the combination of a rising and falling of the voice, or, as we should say in Greek, of an acute and grave accent. As +Dyaús+ was originally +Diaús+, and is frequently used as two syllables in the Veda, the vocative would have been +Díaùs+, and this contracted would become +Dyaus+. Thus we have +paribhvế+ from +paribhûs+. In Greek the facts are the same, but the explanation is more difficult. The general rule in Greek is that vocatives in ου, οι, and ευ, from oxytone or perispome nominatives, are perispome; as πλακοῦ, βοῦ, Λητοῖ, Πηλεῦ, βασιλεῦ, from πλακοῦς, οῦντος, placenta, βοῦς, Λητώ, Πηλεύς, βασιλεύς. The rationale of that rule has never been explained, as far as Greek is concerned. Under this rule the vocative of Ζεύς becomes Ζεῦ; but no Greek grammarian has attempted to explain the process by which Ζεύς becomes Ζεῦ, and nothing remains for the present but to admit that we have in it an ancient Aryan relic preserved in Greek long after the causes which had produced it had ceased to act. It would fall into the same category as εἶμι and ἴμεν. Here, too, the efficient cause of the length and shortness of the radical vowel _i_, viz., the change of accent, Sk. +émi+, but +imás+, has disappeared in Greek, while its effect has been preserved. But whatever explanation may hereafter be adopted, the simple fact which I had pointed out remains, the motive power which changed the nom. +dyaús+ into the vocative +dyaû́s+, is the same which changed Ζεύς into Ζεῦ. Those who do not understand, or do not admit this, are bound to produce, from the resources of Greek itself, another motive power to account for the change of Ζεύς into Ζεῦ; but they must not imagine that a mere reference to a Greek elementary grammar suffices for explaining that process.

The passage in the Rig-Veda (VI. 51, 5) to which I referred is unique, and I therefore give it here, though it has in the meantime been most ably discussed by Benfey in his “Essay on the Vocative” (1872).

“Dyaû́ḥ pítaḥ pṛthivi mấtaḥ ádhruk
Ζεῦ πάτερ πλατεῖα μῆτερ ἀτρεκ(ές)
Ágne bhrấtaḥ vasavaḥ mṛláta naḥ[13]
Ignis φράτερ ϝέΣηϝες μέλδετε nos.”

This passage is clearly one of great antiquity, for it still recognizes +Dyaús+, the father, as the supreme god, Earth, the mother, by his side, and Agni, fire, as the brother, not of Heaven and Earth, but of man, because living with men on the hearth of their houses. +Vasu+, as a general name of the bright gods, like +deva+ in other hymns, corresponds, I believe, to the Greek adjective ἐΰς. The genitive plural ἐάων is likewise derived from ἐΰς or +vásus+, by Benfey (l.c. p. 57), and +dâtấ vásûnâm+ (Rv. VIII. 51, 5) comes certainly very near to δοτὴρ ἐάων. The only difficulty would be the ā instead of the η, as in ἐῆος, the gen. sing. of ἐΰς in Homer, a difficulty which might be removed by tracing the gen. plur. ἐάων back to a fem. ἐά, corresponding to a Sk. +vasavî+ or +vasavyâ+. As to μέλδετε, it is phonetically the nearest approach to +mṛlata+, _i.e._, *+mardata+, though in Greek it means “make mild” rather than “be mild.” Mild and _mollis_ come from the same root.

What gives to this passage its special value is, that in all other passages when +dyaus+ occurs as a vocative and as bisyllabic, it appears simply with the _udâtta_, thus showing at how early a time even the Hindus forgot the meaning of the circumflex on _dyaû́s_, and its legitimate appearance in that place. Thus in Rv. VIII. 100, 12, we read,--

“Sákhe Vishṇo vitarám ví kramasva,
Dyaúḥ dehí lokám vájrâya viskábhe
Hánâva vṛtrám riṇácâva síndhûn
Índrasya yantu prasavé vísṛshṭâḥ.”

“Friend Vishṇu, stride further,
Dyaus give room for the lightning to leap,
Let us both kill Vṛtra and free the rivers,
Let them go, sent forth at the command of Indra.”

Here, I have little doubt, the ancient Rishis pronounced +Dyaû́s+, but the later poets, and the still later +Âcâryas+ were satisfied with the acute, and with the acute the word is written here in all the MSS. I know.

NOTE C.

ARYAN WORDS OCCURRING IN ZEND, BUT NOT IN SANSKRIT.

It has been objected that the three instances which I had quoted of Zend words, not occurring in Sanskrit, but preserved in one or the other of the Indo-European languages, were not sufficient to establish the fact which I wished to establish, particularly as one of them, +kehrp+, existed in Sanskrit, or, at least, in Vedic Sanskrit, as +kṛp+. I admit that I ought to have mentioned the Vedic +kṛp+, rather than the later +kalpa+; but I doubt whether the conclusions which I wished to draw would have been at all affected by this. For what I remarked with regard to +kalpa+, applies with equal force to +kṛp+; it does not in Sanskrit mean body or flesh, like +kehrp+, and _corpus_, but simply form. But even if +kehrp+ were not a case in point, nothing would have been easier than to replace it by other words, if at the time of printing my lecture I had had my collectanea at hand. I now subjoin a more complete list of words, present in Zend, absent in Sanskrit, but preserved in Greek, Latin, or German.

Zend +ana+, prep., upon; Greek ἀνά; Goth, _ana_, upon.

Zend +erezataêna+, adj., made of silver; Lat. _argentinus_. In Sk.
we have +rajatam+, silver, but no corresponding adjective.

Zend +içi+, ice; O.N. _îss_; A.S. _îs_; O.H.S. _îs_.

Grimm compares the Irish _eirr_, snow, and he remarks that the other Aryan languages have each framed their own words for ice, Lith. _ledas_, O.S. _led_, and distantly connected with these, through the Russian _cholodnyi_, the Latin _glacies_, for _gelacies_, Greek κρύος, κρυμός, κρύσταλλος.

The root from which these Greek words for ice are derived has left several derivatives in other languages, such as Lat. _cru-s-ta_, and O.N. _hrî-m_, rime, hoar-frost, and in Zend +khrûta+, used as an adjective of +zim+, winter, originally the hard winter. In Zend +khrûma+, and +khrûra+, Sk. +krûra+, as in Greek κρυόεις, the meaning has changed to _crudus_, _crudelis_. In the English _raw_, O.H.G. _hrâo_, a similar change of meaning may be observed.

Another name connected with ice and winter is the Zend +zyâo+, frost, from the root +hi+, which has given us χι-ών, Sk. +hi-ma+, Lat. _hiem-s_, O.S. _zima_, but which in the simplest form has been preserved in Zend only and in the O.N. _gȩ_. Fick quotes _gȩ_ with the doubtful meanings of cold and snow, Curtius with that of storm, identifying it with Norw. _gjö_, _nix autumni recens_.

There is still another name for snow, absent in Sanskrit, but fully represented in Zend and the other Aryan languages, viz., Zend _çnizh_, to snow, Lat. _nix_, Goth. _snaív-s_, Lith. _snig-ti_, to snow, Ir. _snechta_, snow, Gr. νίφ-α (acc).[14]

Zend +aêva+, one; Gr. οἶος.

Zend +kamara+, girdle, vault; Gr. καμάρα, vault, covered carriage;
A.S. _himil_. Connected with this we find the Zend +kameredhe+,
skull, vault of head, very nearly connected with κμέλεθρον,
μέλαθρον.

Zend +kareta+, knife; Lith. _kalta-s_, knife; cf. _culter_, Sk.
+kart-ari+, etc. The Slav. _korda_, O.N. _kordi_, Hung. _kard_, are
treated by Justi as words borrowed from Persian.

Zend +cvant+, Lat. _quantus_. Sk. has +tâvat+, _tantus_, and
+yâvat+, but not +kâvat+.

Zend +garaṇh+, reverence; Gr. γέρας.

Zend +thrâfaṇh+, food; Gr. -τρέφες.

Zend +da+, _e.g._ +vaêçmen-da+, towards the house; Gr. οἶκόν-δε; cf.
Goth. _du_, to, O.S. _do_.

Zend +daiti+, gift; Gr. δόσις, Lat. _dôs_, _dôti-s_, Lith. _důti-s_.

Zend +dâmi+, creation; Gr. θέμις, law.

Zend +naçu+, corpse; Gr. νέκυς; Goth. _nau-s_.

Zend +napo+, nom. sing.; A.S. _nefa_; O.H.G. _nefo_.

Zend +paithya+ in +qaêpaithya+, own; Lat. _sua-pte_, _ipse_; Lith.
_pati-s_, self.

Zend +peretu+, bridge; Lat. _portus_.

Zend +fraêsta+, most, best; Gr. πλεῖστος.

Zend +brvat+, brow; Gr. ἀβροῦτες (Macedon.); Lat.
_frons_.

Zend +madh+, to cure; Lat. _mederi_.

Zend +man+, in +upa-man+, to wait; Lat. _manere_.

Zend +mîzhda+; Gr. μισθός; Goth. _mizd-ô_; O.S. _mîzda_.

Zend +yâre+, year; Goth. _jer_; O.S. _jarŭ_, spring.

Zend +yâoṇh+, +yâh+, to gird; +yâonha+, dress; Gr. ζωσ in ζώννυμι;
O.S. _po-yasu_, girdle.

Zend +râçta+, straight; Lat. _rectus_; Goth. _raiht-s_.

Zend +rap+, to go; Lat. _repere_.

Zend +varez+, to work, +vareza+, work, +varstva+, work; Goth,
_vaurkjan_, to work; Gr. ἔοργα, ῥέζω; Goth. _vaurstv_.

Zend +vaêti+, willow; Lith. _vỹti-s_, withy; Lat. _vîtis_.

Zend +çtaman+, mouth; Gr. στόμα.

[Footnote 1: Note A, p. 227.]

[Footnote 2: Note B, p. 230.]

[Footnote 3: See M. M.’s _Letter to Chevalier Bunsen, on the
Turanian Languages_, 1854, second chapter, second section,
“Ethnology versus Phonology.”]

[Footnote 4: Note C, p. 235.]

[Footnote 5: “Judgment (_crimen_, κρίνειν), penance (_pœna_,
ποινή), retribution (_talio_, ταλάω, τλῆναι, are Græco-Italic
conceptions.” Mommsen, _Röm. Geschichte_, vol. i. p. 25.]

[Footnote 6: See my article in Kuhn’s _Zeitschrift_, vol. xix.
p. 46.]

[Footnote 7: _Lectures on the Science of Language_, vol. ii.
p. 467.]

[Footnote 8: _Rendiconti del Reale Instituto Lombardo, classe de
lettre_, iv. fasc. 6.]

[Footnote 9: See Benfey, _Über die Enstehung des Indo-germanischen
Vocativs_, Göttingen, 1872, p. 35.]

[Footnote 10: The rule is that vocatives in ον from proper names
in ων retract the accent, except Λακεδαῖμον, and those in φρον, as
Λυκόφρον from Λυκόφρων.]

[Footnote 11: Vocatives in ες from proper names in ης retract the
accent, as Σώκρατες, except those in ωδες, ωλες, ωρες, ηρες, as
Δειῶδες.]

[Footnote 12: Benfey, l.c. p. 40.]

[Footnote 13: See, also, M. M.’s _Lectures on the Science of
Language_, vol. ii, p. 472.]

[Footnote 14: See M. M.’s _Introduction to the Science of
Religion_, p. 372, note.]

V.

WESTMINSTER LECTURE.

ON MISSIONS.[1]

DELIVERED IN THE NAVE OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ON THE EVENING OF DECEMBER 3, 1873.

The number of religions which have attained stability and permanence in the history of the world is very small. If we leave out of consideration those vague and varying forms of faith and worship which we find among uncivilized and unsettled races, among races ignorant of reading and writing, who have neither a literature nor laws, nor even hymns and prayers handed down by oral teaching from father to son, from mother to daughter, we see that the number of the real historical religions of mankind amounts to no more than eight. The Semitic races have produced three--the Jewish, the Christian, the Mohammedan; the Aryan, or Indo-European races an equal number--the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. Add to these the two religious systems of China, that of Confucius and Lao-tse, and you have before you what may be called the eight distinct languages or utterances of the faith of mankind from the beginning of the world to the present day; you have before you in broad outlines the religious map of the whole world.

All these religions, however, have a history, a history more deeply interesting than the history of language, or literature, or art, or politics. Religions are not unchangeable; on the contrary, they are always growing and changing; and if they cease to grow and cease to change, they cease to live. Some of these religions stand by themselves, totally independent of all the rest; others are closely united, or have influenced each other during various stages of their growth and decay. They must therefore be studied together, if we wish to understand their real character, their growth, their decay, and their resuscitations. Thus, Mohammedanism would be unintelligible without Christianity; Christianity without Judaism: and there are similar bonds that hold together the great religions of India and Persia--the faith of the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. After a careful study of the origin and growth of these religions, and after a critical examination of the sacred books on which all of them profess to be founded, it has become possible to subject them all to a scientific classification, in the same manner as languages, apparently unconnected and mutually unintelligible, have been scientifically arranged and classified; and by a comparison of those points which all or some of them share in common, as well as by a determination of those which are peculiar to each, a new science has been called into life, a science which concerns us all, and in which all who truly care for religion must sooner or later take their part--_the Science of Religion_.

Among the various classifications[2] which have been applied to the religions of the world, there is one that interests us more immediately to-night, I mean the division into Non-Missionary and Missionary religions. This is by no means, as might be supposed, a classification based on an unimportant or merely accidental characteristic; on the contrary, it rests on what is the very heart-blood in every system of human faith. Among the six religions of the Aryan and Semitic world, there are three that are opposed to all missionary enterprise--Judaism, Brahmanism, and Zoroastrianism; and three that have a missionary character from their very beginning--Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity.

The Jews, particularly in ancient times, never thought of spreading their religion. Their religion was to them a treasure, a privilege, a blessing, something to distinguish them, as the chosen people of God, from all the rest of the world. A Jew must be of the seed of Abraham: and when in later times, owing chiefly to political circumstances, the Jews had to admit strangers to some of the privileges of their theocracy, they looked upon them, not as souls that had been gained, saved, born again into a new brotherhood, but as strangers גְּרֵיים, as Proselytes (προσήλυτοι); which means men who have come to them as aliens, not to be trusted, as their saying was, until the twenty-fourth generation.[3]

A very similar feeling prevented the Brahmans from ever attempting to proselytize those who did not by birth belong to the spiritual aristocracy of their country. Their wish was rather to keep the light to themselves, to repel intruders; they went so far as to punish those who happened to be near enough to hear even the sound of their prayers, or to witness their sacrifices.[4]

The Parsi, too, does not wish for converts to his religion; he is proud of his faith, as of his blood; and though he believes in the final victory of truth and light, though he says to every man, “Be bright as the sun, pure as the moon,” he himself does very little to drive away spiritual darkness from the face of the earth, by letting the light that is within him shine before the world.

But now let us look at the other cluster of religions, at Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. However they may differ from each other in some of their most essential doctrines, this they share in common--they all have faith in themselves, they all have life and vigor, they want to convince, they mean to conquer. From the very earliest dawn of their existence these three religions were missionary; their very founders, or their first apostles, recognized the new duty of spreading the truth, of refuting error, of bringing the whole world to acknowledge the paramount, if not the divine, authority of their doctrines. This is what gives to them all a common expression, and lifts them high above the level of the other religions of the world.

Let us begin with Buddhism. We know, indeed, very little of its origin and earliest growth, for the earliest beginnings of all religions withdraw themselves by necessity from the eye of the historian. But we have something like contemporary evidence of the Great Council, held at Pâṭaliputra, 246 B.C., in which the sacred canon of the Buddhist scriptures was settled, and at the end of which missionaries were chosen and sent forth to preach the new doctrine, not only in India, but far beyond the frontiers of that vast country.[5] We possess inscriptions containing the edicts of the king who was to Buddhism what Constantine was to Christianity, who broke with the traditions of the old religion of the Brahmans, and recognized the doctrines of Buddha as the state religion of India. We possess the description of the Council of Pâṭaliputra, which was to India what the Council of Nicæa, 570 years later, was to Europe; and we can still read there[6] the simple story, how the chief elder who had presided over the Council, an old man, too weak to travel by land, and carried from his hermitage to the Council in a boat--how that man, when the Council was over, began to reflect on the future, and found that the time had come to establish the religion of Buddha in foreign countries. He therefore dispatched some of the most eminent priests to Cashmere, Cabul, and farther west, to the colonies founded by the Greeks in Bactria, to Alexandria on the Caucasus, and other cities. He sent others northward to Nepal, and to the inhabited portions of the Himalayan mountains. Another mission proceeded to the Dekhan, to the people of Mysore, to the Mahrattas, perhaps to Goa; nay, even Birma and Ceylon are mentioned as among the earliest missionary stations of Buddhist priests. We still possess accounts of their manner of preaching. When threatened by infuriated crowds, one of those Buddhist missionaries said calmly, “If the whole world, including the Deva heavens, were to come and terrify me, they would not be able to create in me fear and terror.” And when he had brought the people to listen, he dismissed them with the simple prayer, “Do not hereafter give way to anger, as before; do not destroy the crops, for all men love happiness. Show mercy to all living beings, and let men dwell in peace.”

No doubt, the accounts of the successes achieved by those early missionaries are exaggerated, and their fights with snakes and dragons and evil spirits remind us sometimes of the legendary accounts of the achievements of such men as St. Patrick in Ireland, or St. Boniface in Germany. But the fact that missionaries were sent out to convert the world seems beyond the reach of reasonable doubt;[7] and this fact represents to us at that time a new thought, new, not only in the history of India, but in the history of the whole world. The recognition of a duty to preach the truth to every man, woman, and child, was an idea opposed to the deepest instincts of Brahmanism; and when, at the end of the chapter on the first missions, we read the simple words of the old chronicler, “who would demur, if the salvation of the world is at stake?” we feel at once that we move in a new world, we see the dawn of a new day, the opening of vaster horizons--we feel, for the first time in the history of the world, the beating of the great heart of humanity.[8]

The Koran breathes a different spirit; it does not invite, it rather compels the world to come in. Yet there are passages, particularly in the earlier portions, which show that Mohammed, too, had realized the idea of humanity, and of a religion of humanity; nay, that at first he wished to unite his own religion with that of the Jews and Christians, comprehending all under the common name of Islâm. Islâm meant originally humility or devotion; and all who humbled themselves before God, and were filled with real reverence, were called Moslim. “The Islâm,” says Mohammed, “is the true worship of God. When men dispute with you, say, ‘I am a Moslim.’ Ask those who have sacred books, and ask the heathen; ‘Are you Moslim?”’ If they are, they are on the right path; but if they turn away, then you have no other task but to deliver the message, to preach to them the Islâm.”[9]

As to our own religion, its very soul is missionary, progressive, world-embracing; it would cease to exist, if it ceased to be missionary--if it disregarded the parting words of its Founder: “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things I have commanded; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

It is this missionary character, peculiar to these three religions, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, which binds them together, and lifts them to a higher sphere. Their differences, no doubt, are great; on some points they are opposed to each other like day and night. But they could not be what they are, they could not have achieved what they have achieved, unless the spirit of truth and the spirit of love had been alive in the hearts of their founders, their first messengers, and missionaries.

The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all religion, and where it exists it must manifest itself, it must plead, it must persuade, it must convince and convert. Missionary work, however, in the usual sense of the word, is only one manifestation of that spirit; for the same spirit which fills the heart of the missionary with daring abroad, gives courage also to the preacher at home, bearing witness to the truth that is within him. The religions which can boast of missionaries who left the old home of their childhood, and parted with parents and friends--never to meet again in this life--who went into the wilderness, willing to spend a life of toil among strangers, ready, if need be, to lay down their life as witnesses to the truth, as martyrs for the glory of God--the same religions are rich also in those honest and intrepid inquirers who, at the bidding of the same spirit of truth, were ready to leave behind them the cherished creed of their childhood, to separate from the friends they loved best, to stand alone among men that shrug their shoulders, and ask, “What is truth?” and to bear in silence a martyrdom more galling often than death itself. There are men who say that, if they held the whole truth in their hand, they would not open one finger. Such men know little of the working of the spirit of truth, of the true missionary spirit. As long as there are doubt and darkness and anxiety in the soul of an inquirer, reticence may be his natural attitude. But when once doubt has yielded to certainty, darkness to light, anxiety to joy, the rays of truth will burst forth; and to close our hand or to shut our lips would be as impossible as for the petals of a flower to shut themselves against the summons of the sun of spring.

What is there in this short life that should seal our lips? What should we wait for, if we are not to speak _here_ and _now_? There is missionary work at home as much as abroad; there are thousands waiting to listen if _one_ man will but speak the truth, and nothing but the truth; there are thousands starving, because they cannot find that food which is convenient for them.

And even if the spirit of truth might be chained down by fear or prudence, the spirit of love would never yield. Once recognize the common brotherhood of mankind, not as a name or a theory, but as a real bond, as a bond more binding, more lasting than the bonds of family, caste, and race, and the questions, Why should I upon my hand? why should I open my heart? why should I speak to my brother? will never be asked again. Is it not far better to speak than to walk through life silent, unknown, unknowing? Has any one of us ever spoken to his friend, and opened to him his inmost soul, and been answered with harshness or repelled with scorn? Has any one of us, be he priest or layman, ever listened to the honest questionings of a truth-loving soul, without feeling his own soul filled with love? aye, without feeling humbled by the very honesty of a brother’s confession?

If we would but confess, friend to friend, if we would be but honest, man to man, we should not want confessors or confessionals.

If our doubts and difficulties are self-made, if they can be removed by wiser and better men, why not give to our brother the opportunity of helping us? But if our difficulties are not self-made, if they are not due either to ignorance or presumption, is it not even then better for us to know that we are all carrying the same burden, the common burden of humanity, if haply we may find, that for the heavy laden there is but one who can give them rest?

There may be times when silence is gold, and speech silver: but there are times also when silence is death, and speech is life--the very life of Pentecost.

How can man be afraid of man? How can we be afraid of those whom we love?

Are the young afraid of the old? But nothing delights the older man more than to see that he is trusted by the young, and that they believe he will tell them the truth.

Are the old afraid of the young? But nothing sustains the young more than to know that they do not stand alone in their troubles, and that in many trials of the soul the father is as helpless as the child.

Are the women afraid of men? But men are not wiser in the things appertaining to God than women, and real love of God is theirs far more than ours.

Are men afraid of women? But though women may hide their troubles more carefully, their heart aches as much as ours, when they whisper to themselves, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.”

Are the laity afraid of the clergy? But where is the clergyman who would not respect honest doubt more than unquestioning faith?

Are the clergy afraid of the laity? But surely we know, in this place at least, that the clear voice of honesty and humility draws more hearts than the harsh accents of dogmatic assurance or ecclesiastic exclusiveness.

“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

A missionary must know no fear; his heart must overflow with love--love of man, love of truth, love of God; and in this, the highest and truest sense of the word, every Christian is, or ought to be, a missionary.

And now, let us look again at the religions in which the missionary spirit has been at work, and compare them with those in which any attempt to convince others by argument, to save souls, to bear witness to the truth, is treated with pity or scorn. _The former are alive, the latter are dying or dead._

The religion of Zoroaster--the religion of Cyrus, of Darius and Xerxes--which, but for the battles of Marathon and Salamis, might have become the religion of the civilized world, is now professed by only 100,000 souls--that is, by about a ten-thousandth part of the inhabitants of the world. During the last two centuries their number has steadily decreased from four to one hundred thousand, and another century will probably exhaust what is still left of the worshippers of the Wise Spirit, Ahura-mazda.

The Jews are about thirty times the number of the Parsis, and they therefore represent a more appreciable portion of mankind. Though it is not likely that they will ever increase in number, yet such is their physical vigor and their intellectual tenacity, such also their pride of race and their faith in Jehovah, that we can hardly imagine that their patriarchal religion and their ancient customs will soon vanish from the face of the earth.

But though the religions of the Parsis and Jews might justly seem to have paid the penalty of their anti-missionary spirit, how, it will be said, can the same be maintained with regard to the religion of the Brahmans? That religion is still professed by at least 110,000,000 of human souls, and, to judge from the last census, even that enormous number falls much short of the real truth. And yet I do not shrink from saying that their religion is dying or dead. And why? Because it cannot stand the light of day. The worship of Śiva, of Vishṇu, and the other popular deities, is of the same, nay, in many cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva; it belongs to a stratum of thought which is long buried beneath our feet: it may live on, like the lion and the tiger, but the mere air of free thought and civilized life will extinguish it. A religion may linger on for a long time, it may be accepted by the large masses of the people, because it is there, and there is nothing better. But when a religion has ceased to produce defenders of the faith, prophets, champions, martyrs, it has ceased to live, in the true sense of the word; and in that sense the old, orthodox Brahmanism has ceased to live for more than a thousand years.

It is true there are millions of children, women, and men in India who fall down before the stone image of Vishṇu, with his four arms, riding on a creature half bird, half man, or sleeping on the serpent; who worship Śiva, a monster with three eyes, riding naked on a bull, with a necklace of skulls for his ornament. There are human beings who still believe in a god of war, Kârtikêya, with six faces, riding on a peacock, and holding bow and arrow in his hands; and who invoke a god of success, Gaṇeśa, with four hands and an elephant’s head, sitting on a rat. Nay, it is true that, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, the figure of the goddess Kali is carried through the streets of her own city, Calcutta,[10] her wild disheveled hair reaching to her feet, with a necklace of human heads, her tongue protruded from her mouth, her girdle stained with blood. All this is true; but ask any Hindu who can read and write and think, whether these are the gods he believes in, and he will smile at your credulity. How long this living death of national religion in India may last, no one can tell: for our purposes, however, for gaining an idea of the issue of the great religious struggle of the future, that religion too is dead and gone.

The three religions which are alive, and between which the decisive battle for the dominion of the world will have to be fought, are the three missionary religions, _Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity_. Though religious statistics are perhaps the most uncertain of all, yet it is well to have a general conception of the forces of our enemies; and it is well to know that, though the number of Christians is double the number of Mohammedans, the Buddhist religion still occupies the first place in the religious census of mankind.[11]

Buddhism rules supreme in Central, Northern, Eastern, and Southern Asia, and it gradually absorbs whatever there is left of aboriginal heathenism in that vast and populous area.

Mohammedanism claims as its own Arabia, Persia, great parts of India, Asia Minor, Turkey, and Egypt; and its greatest conquests by missionary efforts are made among the heathen population of Africa.

Christianity reigns in Europe and America, and it is conquering the native races of Polynesia and Melanesia, while its missionary outposts are scattered all over the world.

Between these three powers, then, the religious battle of the future, the Holy War of mankind, will have to be fought, and is being fought at the present moment, though apparently with little effect. To convert a Mohammedan is difficult; to convert a Buddhist, more difficult still; to convert a Christian, let us hope, well nigh impossible.

What then, it may be asked, is the use of missionaries? Why should we spend millions on foreign missions, when there are children in our cities who are allowed to grow up in ignorance? Why should we deprive ourselves of some of the noblest, boldest, most ardent and devoted spirits and send them into the wilderness, while so many laborers are wanted in the vineyard at home.

It is right to ask these questions; and we ought not to blame those political economists who tell us that every convert costs us £200, and that at the present rate of progress it would take more than 200,000 years to evangelize the world. There is nothing at all startling in these figures. Every child born in Europe is as much a heathen as the child of a Melanesian cannibal; and it costs us more than £200 to turn a child into a Christian man. The other calculation is totally erroneous; for an intellectual harvest must not be calculated by adding simply grain to grain, but by counting each grain as a living seed, that will bring forth fruit a hundred and a thousand fold.

If we want to know what work there is for the missionary to do, what results we may expect from it, we must distinguish between two kinds of work: the one is _parental_, the other _controversial_. Among uncivilized races the work of the missionary is the work of a parent; whether his pupils are young in years or old, he has to treat them with a parent’s love, to teach them with a parent’s authority; he has to win them, not to argue with them. I know this kind of missionary work is often despised; it is called mere religious kidnapping; and it is said that missionary success obtained by such means proves nothing for the truth of Christianity; that the child handed over to a Mohammedan would grow up a Mohammedan, as much as a child taken by a Christian missionary becomes a Christian. All this is true; missionary success obtained by such means proves nothing for the truth of our creeds: but it proves, what is far more important, it proves Christian love. Read only the “Life of Patteson,” the bishop of Melanesia; follow him in his vessel, sailing from island to island, begging for children, carrying them off as a mother her new-born child, nursing them, washing and combing them, clothing them, feeding them, teaching them in his Episcopal Palace, in which he himself is everything, nurse, and housemaid, and cook, schoolmaster, physician, and bishop--read there, how that man who tore himself away from his aged father, from his friends, from his favorite studies and pursuits, had the most loving of hearts for these children, how indignantly he repelled for them the name of savages, how he trusted them, respected them, honored them, and when they were formed and established, took them back to their island home, there to be a leaven for future ages. Yes, read the life, the work, the death of that man, a death in very truth, a ransom for the sins of others--and then say whether you would like to suppress a profession that can call forth such self-denial, such heroism, such sanctity, such love. It has been my privilege to have known some of the finest and noblest spirits which England has produced during this century, but there is none to whose memory I look up with greater reverence, none by whose friendship I feel more deeply humbled than by that of that true saint, that true martyr, that truly parental missionary.

The work of the parental missionary is clear, and its success undeniable, not only in Polynesia and Melanesia, but in many parts of India--(think only of the bright light of Tinnevelly)--in Africa, in China, in America, in Syria, in Turkey, aye, in the very heart of London.

The case is different with the controversial missionary, who has to attack the faith of men brought up in other religions, in religions which contain much truth, though mixed up with much error. Here the difficulties are immense, the results very discouraging. Nor need we wonder at this. We know, each of us, but too well, how little argument avails in theological discussion; how often it produces the very opposite result of what we expected; confirming rather than shaking opinions no less erroneous, no less indefensible, than many articles of the Mohammedan or Buddhist faith.

And even when argument proves successful, when it forces a verdict from an unwilling judge, how often has the result been disappointing; because in tearing up the rotten stem on which the tree rested, its tenderest fibres have been injured, its roots unsettled, its life destroyed.

We have little ground to expect that these controversial weapons will carry the day in the struggle between the three great religions of the world.

But there is a third kind of missionary activity, which has produced the most important results, and through which alone, I believe, the final victory will be gained. Whenever two religions are brought into contact, when members of each live together in peace, abstaining from all direct attempts at conversion, whether by force or by argument, though conscious all the time of the fact that they and their religion are on their trial, that they are being watched, that they are responsible for all they say and do--the effect has always been the greatest blessing to both. It calls out all the best elements in each, and at the same time keeps under all that is felt to be of doubtful value, of uncertain truth. Whenever this has happened in the history of the world, it has generally led either to the reform of both systems, or to the foundation of a new religion.

When after the conquest of India the violent measures for the conversion of the Hindus to Mohammedanism had ceased, and Mohammedans and Brahmans lived together in the enjoyment of perfect equality, the result was a purified Mohammedanism, and a purified Brahmanism.[12] The worshippers of Vishṇu, Śiva, and other deities became ashamed of these mythological gods, and were led to admit that there was, either over and above these individual deities, or instead of them, a higher divine power (the Para-Brahma), the true source of all being, the only and almighty ruler of the world. That religious movement assumed its most important development at the beginning of the twelfth century, when Râmânuja founded the reformed sect of the worshippers of Vishṇu; and again, in the fourteenth century, when his fifth successor, Râmânanda, imparted a still more liberal character to that powerful sect. Not only did he abolish many of the restrictions of caste, many of the minute ceremonial observances in eating, drinking, and bathing, but he replaced the classical Sanskrit--which was unintelligible to the large masses of the people--by the living vernaculars, in which he preached a purer worship of God.

The most remarkable man of that time was a weaver, the pupil of Râmânanda, known by the name of Kabir. He indeed deserved the name which the members of the reformed sect claimed for themselves, Avadhûta, which means one who has shaken off the dust of superstition. He broke entirely with the popular mythology and the customs of the ceremonial law, and addressed himself alike to Hindu and Mohammedan. According to him, there is but one God, the creator of the world, without beginning and end, of inconceivable purity, and irresistible strength. The pure man is the image of God, and after death attains community with God. The commandments of Kabir are few: Not to injure anything that has life, for life is of God; to speak the truth; to keep aloof from the world; to obey the teacher. His poetry is most beautiful, hardly surpassed in any other language.

Still more important in the history of India was the reform of Nânak, the founder of the Sikh religion. He, too, worked entirely in the spirit of Kabir. Both labored to persuade the Hindus and Mohammedans that the truly essential parts of their creeds were the same, that they ought to discard the varieties of practical detail, and the corruptions of their teachers, for the worship of the _One Only Supreme_, whether he was termed Allah or Vishṇu.

The effect of these religious reforms has been highly beneficial; it has cut into the very roots of idolatry, and has spread throughout India an intelligent and spiritual worship, which may at any time develop into a higher national creed.

The same effect which Mohammedanism produced on Hinduism is now being produced, in a much higher degree, on the religious mind of India by the mere presence of Christianity. That silent influence began to tell many years ago, even at a time when no missionaries were allowed within the territory of the old East India Company. Its first representative was Ram Mohun Roy, born just one hundred years ago, in 1772, who died at Bristol in 1833, the founder of the Brahma-Samâj. A man so highly cultivated and so highly religious as he was, could not but feel humiliated at the spectacle which the popular religion of his country presented to his English friends. He drew their attention to the fact that there was a purer religion to be found in the old sacred writings of his people, the Vedas. He went so far as to claim for the Vedas a divine origin, and to attempt the foundation of a reformed faith on their authority. In this attempt he failed.

No doubt the Vedas and other works of the ancient poets and prophets of India, contain treasures of truth, which ought never to be forgotten, least of all by the sons of India. The late good Bishop Cotton, in his address to the students of a missionary institution at Calcutta, advised them to use a certain hymn of the Rig-Veda in their daily prayers.[13] Nowhere do we find stronger arguments against idolatry, nowhere has the unity of the Deity been upheld more strenuously against the errors of polytheism than by some of the ancient sages of India. Even in the oldest of their sacred books, the Rig-Veda, composed three or four thousand years ago--where we find hymns addressed to the different deities of the sky, the air, the earth, the rivers--the protest of the human heart against many gods, breaks forth from time to time with no uncertain sound. One poet, after he has asked to whom sacrifice is due, answers, “to Him who is God above all gods.”[14] Another poet, after enumerating the names of many deities, affirms, without hesitation, that “these are all but names of Him who is One.” And even when single deities are invoked, it is not difficult to see that, in the mind of the poet, each one of the names is meant to express the highest conception of deity of which the human mind was _then_ capable. The god of the sky is called Father and Mother and Friend; he is the Creator, the Upholder of the Universe; he rewards virtue and punishes sin; he listens to the prayers of those who love him.

But granting all this, we may well understand why an attempt to claim for these books a divine origin, and thus to make them an artificial foundation for a new religion, failed. The successor of Ram Mohun Roy, the present head of the Brahma-Samâj, the wise and excellent Debendranâth Tagore, was for a time even more decided in holding to the Vedas as the sole foundation of the new faith. But this could not last. As soon as the true character of the Vedas,[15] which but few people in India can understand, became known, partly through the efforts of native, partly of European scholars, the Indian reformers relinquished the claim of divine inspiration in favor of their Vedas, and were satisfied with a selection of passages from the works of the ancient sages of India, to express and embody the creed which the members of the Brahma-Samâj hold in common.[16]

The work which these religious reformers have been doing in India is excellent, and those only who know what it is, in religious matters, to break with the past, to forsake the established custom of a nation, to oppose the rush of public opinion, to brave adverse criticism, to submit to social persecution, can form any idea of what those men have suffered, in bearing witness to the truth that was within them.

They could not reckon on any sympathy on the part of Christian missionaries; nor did their work attract much attention in Europe till very lately, when a schism broke out in the Brahma-Samâj between the old conservative party and a new party, led by Keshub Chunder Sen. The former, though willing to surrender all that was clearly idolatrous in the ancient religion and customs of India, wished to retain all that might safely be retained: it did not wish to see the religion of India denationalized. The other party, inspired and led by Keshub Chunder Sen, went further in their zeal for religious purity. All that smacked of the old leaven was to be surrendered; not only caste, but even that sacred cord--the religious riband which makes and marks the Brahman, which is to remind him at every moment of his life, and whatever work he may be engaged in, of his God, of his ancestors, and of his children--even that was to be abandoned; and instead of founding their creed exclusively on the utterances of the ancient sages of their own country, all that was best in the sacred books of the whole world was selected and formed into a new sacred code.[17]

The schism between these two parties is deeply to be deplored; but it is a sign of life. It augurs success rather than failure for the future. It is the same schism which St. Paul had to heal in the Church of Corinth, and he healed it with the words, so often misunderstood, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.”

In the eyes of our missionaries this religious reform in India has not found much favor: nor need we wonder at this. Their object is to transplant, if possible, Christianity in its full integrity from England to India, as we might wish to transplant a full-grown tree. They do not deny the moral worth, the noble aspirations, the self-sacrificing zeal of these native reformers; but they fear that all this will but increase their dangerous influence, and retard the progress of Christianity, by drawing some of the best minds of India, that might have been gained over to our religion, into a different current. They feel towards Keshub Chunder Sen[18] as Athanasius might have felt towards Ulfilas, the Arian Bishop of the Goths: and yet, what would have become of Christianity in Europe but for those Gothic races, but for those Arian heretics, who were considered more dangerous than downright pagans?