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recruits have been drawn has been that of youths fresh from school. The movement had special attractions for such ardent young minds; it required but a slight acquaintance with Western science and literature to shake their faith in old Hinduism; it was the prevailing fashion of the members of their class to assert their superiority to the trammels of superstition; they had become wiser than the ancients,' they would rise to their privileges and walk in the light of their intuition; they would move onward in the path of reform and liberty. It was easy to do all this; for, although conversion to Christianity involved a terrible cross in the severance of social ties, no such a penalty fell upon the convert to Brahmăism; he could still dwell in the bosom of his family, still be respected in Hindu society; the door, moreover, for a return to orthodox conformity was ever open to him.

Not a few avail themselves of that open door; the following lamentation of the Brahmist organ admits this fact: Yesterday we saw thousands of educated youths in all parts of the country marching valiantly forward in the path of reform, and crushing all the evils in the land; to-day hundreds may be seen stealthily retracing their steps, and ignobly vowing allegiance to ancestral divinities and ancient errors.'

As regards the numerical importance of the Shamaj, very exaggerated impressions have prevailed. Doubtless the somewhat boastful rhetorical figures employed by Brahmos themselves on this point have favoured misconception. The illusion, however, was dissipated by the Government census of Calcutta, taken three years ago. It is well known that the capital of India, as it was the birth-place of this movement, so is it the scene of its most successful operations. Our readers may be astonished to learn that, instead of the thousands of Brahmos with which public rumour had credited the Shamaj, the census returns showed no more than ninety-two enrolled members!

This movement, therefore, view it in whatever light we may,

must be termed a failure. It is but one of the manifold efforts which the religious history of India reveals to find a more excellent way' than the old and unsatisfying system of Hinduism. Brahmăism has failed as other reforming schemes have done before it. In one respect it has deserved to fail, for it has deliberately ignored great fundamental truths which Hinduism has upheld. The need of a divine revelation, of an atonement for sin, and of some incarnation of the deity, are truths which Hinduism holds in common with Christianity. Devout Hindus for 3,000 years back have been clinging to these truths. Brahmăism meets those aspirations with a cold negation; it offers a stone when the children ask bread, and, for a fish, gives them a serpent; Christianity alone satisfies those soul-cravings, for it points to the one true revelation of God's will, it reveals the only efficient sacrifice for sin, and presents to the believing gaze the one true incarnation in the person of the Godman Christ Jesus.

THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISSOLVING AGENCIES.

'I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it; and it shall be no more, until he shall come whose right it is; and I will give it him.' (Ezek. xxi. 27.)

A PECULIAR and suggestive phenomenon again and again greets the eye of an Indian traveller; he beholds a mass of vegetation growing out of the roof of an ancient temple; besides grass and tangled weeds, he may sometimes see trees of considerable size thriving in that strange locality, with nothing, as it seems, but the stones to subsist upon; there is a vigorous pepul shooting its head aloft, there is a spreading banyan with its pendant feelers; and how have these trees come there? The answer is simple enough-a breath of wind or a little bird has at some time deposited a living seed on the dome of the idol shrine; the accumulated dust of centuries in the many crevices of the roof has given it a home; the silent dews or the pouring rains, together with the vital rays of the sun, have caused it to germinate. By-and-bye a sprout has appeared, but so small as hardly to arrest attention; months have elapsed; all the while the roots have been insinuating themselves into the interstices of the masonry; at length the priests discern the growing mischief; they ascend the roof and try to eradicate it, but it is too late; they cut down the tree level with the stone, but that avails not the roots are there still; inevitably, in a few weeks

the tree reappears. It is a hopeless case; the priests feel it to be so, they suffer the evil to go on, assured of what the upshot must be. For a long time no serious damage appears, the tree flourishes and the temple remains intact; but it is only a question of time-the dead temple must yield to the living tree. You visit the temple five years later, and you see the roots have not only penetrated and intersected the roof, but are making their way down the walls. As you gaze upwards you may trace ominous rents and fissures in the hoary dome of bygone centuries. You repeat your visit a few years hence, and you see the roots have already reached the soil; now the tree develops with unwonted vigour and rapidity: the rents become gaping wounds; disintegration is followed by demolition; piece by piece the old shrine crumbles to the ground, and at length naught but a majestic tree marks the spot where it once stood.1

Such is a true and life-like picture of the present condition of Hinduism. The seed of truth has, by various agencies, been deposited on the roof of the old system. The seeds have been manifold, the agencies have been multiform. The seeds, not only of religious truth, but of scientific, philosophic, historic and social truth, have fallen upon the ancient dome. Contact with Western thought, Western usages, Western literature and science; the introduction of Western improvements in locomotion, medicine, intercommunication and sanitary organisation -all these things, and many more which it is hard to particularise-have subtlely, steadily, surely, been telling upon the antiquated system, It is difficult to define the nature and limits of the influence exerted by those several agencies; indeed, it is impossible to do so, for one thing has interlaced with another, one tendency has facilitated or checked another; but

1 Scores of times have we passed such a tree to the south of Calcutta ; the temple which it vanquished has utterly gone; its only traces are a rude outline of its form, and a solitary block of masonry in the circling stem.

of the general effect there is no room for doubt-the seeds of truth have been germinating, the trees of truth have been growing, the fabric of falsehood and error has been yielding, and no power on earth or in hell can prevent the final issue. Hinduism is doomed; huge rents and fissures tell of a coming crash. We say not that its fall is at hand; it may be yet remote; but we fearlessly aver that its days are numbered-it is smitten with an incurable tendency to decay and dissolution; and already, with the eye of faith, we behold the glorious tree of truth rearing its victorious head over the idol fanes of India, whilst its emancipated sons gladly shelter under its branches.

He that sowed the seed is the Son of Man.' No thoughtful man can take a broad view of those varied influences and agencies which are ministering to the grand result, without discerning herein the hand of Him who is wonderful in counsel and mighty in operation.' All truth is from Him, and He best knows in what ways, at what times, and in what degrees, to present the different aspects of truth to his creatures. It is a reflection of the deepest interest and weightiest import to Christian minds, that the tendencies and influences we speak of are the outcome of the Christian era in India. Hinduism, as we have seen, has had a chequered and, in some respects, a perilous history; it has been assailed both from within and without; but it lived on practically unshaken by every assault : if for a while it bent its head to the raging tempest, it again reared itself up as the monarch of the forest which no passing storm could uproot; Buddhism vanished before it, and Mohammedanism failed to subdue it. When the sceptre of India lapsed to Christian hands, Hinduism emerged from a struggle of 2,300 years with those two formidable adversaries, unscathed and unshattered. It had doubtless received some slight tinge of the systems with which it had been in contact; it had moreover seen numerous sects arise within its bosom, but all this affected not its stability; moored to the great sheet

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