Mahâdayassâpi jinassa kaḍḍhanaṃ,
Vihâya pattaṃ amataṃ sukham pi te
Kariṃsu lokassa hitaṃ tahiṃ tahiṃ,
Bhaveyya ko lokahite pamâdavâ?
The first line is elliptical.
(Imitating) the resignation of the all-merciful Conqueror,
They also, resigning the deathless bliss within their reach,
Worked the welfare of mankind in various lands.
What man is there who would be remiss in doing good to mankind?
Hardy, in his “Manual of Buddhism” (p. 187), relates how fifty-four princes and a thousand fire-worshippers became the disciples of Buddha. “Whilst Buddha remained at Isipatana, Yasa, the son of Sujatá, who had been brought up in all delicacy, one night went secretly to him, was received with affection, became a priest, and entered the first path. The father, on discovering that he had fled, was disconsolate: but Buddha delivered to him a discourse, by which he became a rahat. The fifty-four companions of Yasa went to the monastery to induce him to return, and play with them as usual; but when they saw him, they were so struck with his manner and appearance, that they also resolved on becoming priests. When they went to Buddha, they were admitted, by the power of irdhi received the pirikara requisites of the priesthood, and became rahats. Buddha had now sixty disciples who were rahats, and he commanded them to go by different ways, and proclaim to all that a supreme Buddha had appeared in the world.”
Mr. Childers has kindly sent me the following extract from Fausböll’s “Dhammapada” (p. 119), where the same story is told:—
. . . . Yasakulaputtassa upanissayasampattiṃ disvâ taṃ rattibhâge nibbijjitvâ gehaṃ pahâya nikkhantaṃ “ehi Yasati” pakkositvâ, tasmiñ ñeva rattibhâge sotâpattiphalaṃ punadivase arahattuṃ pâpesi. Apare pi tassa sahâyake catupaṇṇâsajane ehibhikkhupabbajjâya pabbâjetvâ arahattuṃ pâpesi. Evaṃ loke ekasaṭṭhiyâ arahantesu jâtesu vutthavasso pavâretva “caratha bhikkhave cârikan” ti saṭṭhiṃ bhikkhû disâsu pesetvâ. . . . . “Seeing that the young nobleman Yasa was ripe for conversion, in the night, when weary with the vanities of the world he had left his home and embraced the ascetic life,—he called him, saying, ‘Follow me, Yasa,’ and that very night he caused him to obtain the fruition of the first path, and on the following day arhatship. And fifty-four other persons, who were friends of Yasa’s, he ordained with the formula, ‘Follow me, priest,’ and caused them to attain arhatship. Thus when there were sixty-one arhats in the world, having passed the period of seclusion during the rains and resumed active duties, he sent forth the sixty priests in all directions, saying, ‘Go forth, priests, on your rounds (or travels).’”
Another passage, too, showing Buddha’s desire to see his doctrine preached in the whole world, was pointed out to me by Mr. Childers from the “Mahâparinibbâna Sutta,” which has since been published by this indefatigable scholar in the “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. vii., p. 77:—
“Three months before his death, when Gautama’s health and strength is fast failing, he is tempted by Mâra, who comes to him and urges him to bring his life and mission at once to a close by attaining Nirvâṇa (dying). Buddha replies that he will not die until his disciples are perfect on all points, and able to maintain the Truth with power against all unbelievers. Mâra replies that this is already the case, whereupon Buddha uses these striking words: Na tâvâhaṃ pâpima parinibbayissâmi yâva me imaṃ brahmacariyaṃ na iddhañ c’ eva bhavissati phîtañ ca vitthârikaṃ bâhujaññaṃ puthubhûtaṃ, yâvad eva manusschi suppakâsitan ti. ‘O wicked one, I will not die until this my holy religion thrives and prospers, until it is widely spread, known to many peoples, and grown great, until it is completely published among men.’ Mara again asserts that this is already the case, and Buddha replies, ‘Strive no more, wicked one, the death of the Tathagata is at hand, at the end of three months from this time, the Tathâgata will attain Nirvâṇa.’”
NOTE B.
The Schism in the Brahma-Samâj.22,
text
The present position of the two parties in the Brahma-Samâj is well described by Rajnarain Bose (the “Adi Brahmo Samaj,” Calcutta, 1873, p. 11). “The particular opinions above referred to can be divided into two comprehensive classes—conservative and progressive. The conservative Brahmos are those who are unwilling to push religious and social reformation to any great extreme. They are of opinion that reformation should be gradual, the law of gradual progress being universally prevalent in nature. They also say that the principle of Brahmic harmony requires a harmonious discharge of all our duties, and that, as it is a duty to take a part in reformation, so there are other duties to perform, namely, those towards parents and society, and that we should harmonize all these duties as much as we can. However unsatisfactory such arguments may appear to a progressive Brahmo, they are such as could not be slighted at first sight. They are certainly such as to make the conservative Brahmo think sincerely that he is justified in not pushing religious and social reformation to any great extreme. The progressive Brahmo cannot therefore call him a hypocrite. A union of both the conservative and the progressive elements in the Brahmo church is necessary for its stability. The conservative element will prevent the progressive from spoiling the cause of reformation by taking premature and abortive measures for advancing that cause; the progressive element will prevent the conservative from proving a stolid obstruction to it. The conservative element will serve as a link between the progressive element and the orthodox community, and prevent the progressive Brahmo from being completely estranged from that community, as the native Christians are; while the progressive element will prevent the conservative from remaining inert and being absorbed by the orthodox community. The common interests of Brahmo Dharma should lead both classes to respect, and be on amicable terms with each other. It is true the progressive of the present half century will prove the conservative of the next; but there could never come a time when the two classes would cease to exist in the bosom of the church. She should, like a wise mother, make them live in peace with each other, and work harmoniously together for her benefit.
“As idolatry is intimately interwoven with our social fabric, conservative Brahmos, though discarding it in other respects, find it very difficult to do so on the occasion of such very important domestic ceremonies as marriage, shradh (ancestral sacrifices), and upanayana (spiritual apprenticing); but they should consider that Brahmoism is not so imperative on any other point as on the renunciation of idolatry. It can allow conservatism in other respects, but not on the point of idolatry. It can consider a man a Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idolatry; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo. The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual laid down in the ‘Anushthána Paddhati.’ Liberty should be given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the portions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive Brahmo requires a conservative one to reject those portions which the former considers to be idolatrous, but the latter does not, he denies liberty of conscience to a fellow-Brahmo.
“The Adi Brahmo-Samaj is the national Hindu Theistic Church, whose principles of church reformation we have been describing above. Its demeanor towards the old religion of the country is friendly, but corrective and reformative. It is this circumstance which preëminently distinguishes it from the Brahmo-Samaj of India, whose attitude to that religion is antagonistic and offensive. The mission of the Adi Samaj is to fulfill the old religion, and not to destroy it. The attitude of the Adi Samaj to the old religion is friendly, but it is not at the same time opposed to progress. It is a mistake to call it a conservative church. It is rather a conservative-progressive church, or, more correctly, simply a church or religious body, leaving matters of social reformation to the judgments of individual members or bodies of such members. It contains both progressive and conservative members. As the ultra-progressive Brahmos, who wanted to eliminate the conservative element from it, were obliged to secede from it, so if a high conservative party arise in its bosom which would attempt to do violence to the progressive element and convert the church into a partly conservative one, that party also would be obliged to secede from it. Only men who can be tolerant of each others opinions, and can respect each others earnest convictions, progressive and conservative, can remain its members.”
The strong national feeling of the Indian reformers finds expression in the following passage from “Brahmic Questions,” p. 9:—
“A Samaj is accessible to all. The minds of the majority of our countrymen are not deeply saturated with Christian sentiments. What would they think of a Brahmo minister who would quote on the Vedi (altar) sayings from the Bible? Would they not from that time conceive an intolerable hatred towards Brahmoism and everything Brahmo? If quoting a sentence from the Bible or Koran offend our countrymen, we shall not do so. Truth is as catholic when taken from the Sâstras as from the Koran or the Bible. True liberality consists, not in quoting texts from the religious Scriptures of other nations, but in bringing up, as we advance, the rear who are groveling in ignorance and superstition. We certainly do not act against the dictates of conscience, if we quote texts from the Hindu Sâstras only, and not from all the religious Scriptures of all the countries on the face of the globe. Moreover, there is not a single saying in the Scriptures of other nations, which has not its counterpart in the Sâstras.”
And again in “The Adi Brahma-Samaj, its Views and Principles,” p. 1:—
“The members of the Adi Samaj, aiming to diffuse the truths of Theism among their own nation, the Hindus, have naturally adopted a Hindu mode of propagation, just as an Arab Theist would adopt an Arabian mode of propagation, and a Chinese Theist a Chinese one. Such differences in the aspect of Theism in different countries must naturally arise from the usual course of things, but they are adventitious, not essential, national, not sectarian. Although Brahmoism is universal religion, it is impossible to communicate a universal form to it. It must wear a particular form in a particular country. A so-called universal form would make it appear grotesque and ridiculous to the nation or religious denomination among whom it is intended to be propagated, and would not command their veneration. In conformity with such views, the Adi Samaj has adopted a Hindu form to propagate Theism among Hindus. It has therefore retained many innocent Hindu usages and customs, and has adopted a form of divine service containing passages extracted from the Hindu Sâstras only, a book of Theistic texts containing selections from those sacred books only, and a ritual containing as much of the ancient form as could be kept consistently with the dictates of conscience.”
NOTE C.
text
Extracts from Keshub Chunder Sen’s Lecture on Christ and Christianity,
1870.
“Why have I cherished respect and reverence for Christ? . . . Why is it that, though I do not take the name of ‘Christian,’ I still persevere in offering my hearty thanksgivings to Jesus Christ? There must be something in the life and death of Christ,—there must be something in his great gospel which tends to bring comfort and light and strength to a heart heavy-laden with iniquity and wickedness. . . . I studied Christ ethically, nay spiritually,—and I studied the Bible also in the same spirit, and I must acknowledge candidly and sincerely that I owe a great deal to Christ and to the gospel of Christ. . . .
“My first inquiry was, What is the creed taught in the Bible? . . . Must I go through all the dogmas and doctrines which constitute Christianity in the eye of the various sects, or is there something simple which I can at once grasp and turn to account?
“I found Christ spoke one language, and Christianity another. I went to him prepared to hear what he had to say, and was immensely gratified when he told me: ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself;’ and then he added, ‘This is the whole law and the prophets,’ in other words, the whole philosophy, theology, and ethics of the law and the prophets are concentrated in these two great doctrines of love to God and love to man; and then elsewhere he said, ‘This do and ye shall inherit everlasting life.’ . . . If we love God and love man we become Christ-like, and so attain everlasting life.
“Christ never demanded from me worship or adoration that is due to God, the Creator of the Universe. . . . He places himself before me as the spirit I must imbibe in order to approach the Divine Father, as the great Teacher and guide who will lead me to God.
“There are some persons who believe that if we pass through the ceremony of baptism and sacrament, we shall be accepted by God, but if you accept baptism as an outward rite, you cannot thereby render your life acceptable to God, for Christ wants something internal, a complete conversion of the heart, a giving up the yoke of mammon and accepting the yoke of religion, and truth, and God. He wants us to baptize our hearts not with cold water, but with the fire of religious and spiritual enthusiasm; he calls upon us not to go through any outward rite, but to make baptism a ceremony of the heart, a spiritual enkindling of all our energies, of all our loftiest and most heavenly aspirations and activities. That is true baptism. So with regard to the doctrine of the sacrament. There are many who eat the bread and drink the wine at the sacramental table, and go through the ceremony in the most pious and fervent spirit; but, after all, what does the sacrament mean? If men simply adopt it as a tribute of respect and honor to Christ, shall he be satisfied? Shall they themselves be satisfied? Can we look upon them as Christians simply because they have gone through this rite regularly for twenty or fifty years of their lives? I think not. Christ demands of us absolute sanctification and purification of the heart. In this matter, also, I see Christ on one side, and Christian sects on the other.
“What is that bread which Christ asked his disciples to eat? what that wine which he asked them to taste? Any man who has simple intelligence in him, would at once come to the conclusion that all this was metaphorical, and highly and eminently spiritual. Now, are you prepared to accept Christ simply as an outward Christ, an outward teacher, an external atonement and propitiation, or will you prove true to Christ by accepting his solemn injunctions in their spiritual importance and weight? He distinctly says, every follower of his must eat his flesh and drink his blood. If we eat, bread is converted into strength and health, and becomes the means of prolonging our life; so, spiritually, if we take truth into our heart, if we put Christ into the soul, we assimilate the spirit of Christ to our spiritual being, and then we find Christ incorporated into our existence and converted into spiritual strength, and health, and joy, and blessedness. Christ wants something that will amount to self-sacrifice, a casting away of the old man, and a new growth in the heart. I thus draw a line of demarcation between the visible and outward Christ, and the invisible and inward Christ, between bodily Christ and spiritual Christ, between the Christ of images and pictures, and the Christ that grows in the heart, between dead Christ and living Christ, between Christ that lived and that was, and Christ that does live and that is. . . . .
“To be a Christian then is to be Christ-like. Christianity means becoming like Christ, not acceptance of Christ as a proposition or as an outward representation, but spiritual conformity with the life and character of Christ. And what is Christ? By Christ I understand one who said, ‘Thy will be done;’ and when I talk of Christ, I talk of that spirit of loyalty to God, that spirit of absolute determinedness and preparedness to say at all times and in all circumstances, ‘Thy will be done, not mine.’ . . . .
“This prayer about forgiving an enemy and loving an enemy, this transcendental doctrine of love of man, is really sweet to me, and when I think of that blessed Man of God, crucified on the cross, and uttering those blessed words, ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;’ oh! I feel that I must love that being, I feel that there is something within me which is touched by these sweet and heavenly utterances, I feel that I must love Christ, let Christians say what they like against me; that Christ I must love, for he preached love for an enemy. . . . .
“When every individual man becomes Christian in spirit—repudiate the name, if you like—when every individual man becomes as prayerful as Christ was, as loving and forgiving towards enemies as Christ was, as self-sacrificing as Christ was, then these little units, these little individualities, will coalesce and combine together by the natural affinity of their hearts; and these new creatures, reformed, regenerated, in the child-like and Christ-like spirit of devotion and faith, will feel drawn towards each other, and they shall constitute a real Christian church, a real Christian nation. Allow me, friends, to say, England is not yet a Christian nation.”
Extracts from a Catechism issued by a member of the Adi Brahmo-Samaj.
Q. Who is the deity of the Brahmos?
A. The One True God, one only without a second, whom all Hindu Śâstras proclaim.
Q. What is the divine worship of the Brahmos?
A. Loving God, and doing the works He loveth.
Q. What is the temple of the Brahmos?
A. The pure heart.
Q. What are the ceremonial observances of the Brahmos?
A. Good works.
Q. What is the sacrifice of the Brahmos?
A. Renunciation of selfishness.
Q. What are the austerities of the Brahmos?
A. Not committing sin. The Mahábhárata says, He who does not commit sin in mind, speech, action, or understanding, performs austerities; not he who drieth up his body.
Q. What is the place of pilgrimage of the Brahmos?
A. The company of the good.
Q. What is the Veda of the Brahmos?
A. Divine knowledge. It is superior to all Vedas. The Veda itself says: The inferior knowledge is the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, the Atharva Veda, etc.; the superior knowledge is that which treats of God.
Q. What is the most sacred formula of the Brahmos?
A. Be good and do good.
Q. Who is the true Brahman?
A. He who knows Brahma. The Brihadâraṇyaka-Upanishad says: He who departs from this world knowing God, is a Brahman. (See “Brahmic Questions of the Day,” 1869.)
THE END AND THE MEANS
OF
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
A SERMON23 PREACHED BY ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., DEAN OF WESTMINSTER, ON THE DAY OF INTERCESSION FOR MISSIONS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1873.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that, not only thou, but all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
Ὁ δὲ Ἀγρίππας πρὸς τὸν Παῦλον ἔφη· Ἐν ὀλίγῳ με πείθεις Χριστιανὸν γενέσθαι. Ὁ δὲ Παῦλος εἶπεν· Εὐξαίμην ἂν τῷ Θεῳ, καὶ ἐν ὀλίγῳ καὶ ἐν πολλῷ οὐ μόνον σε, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντάς μου σήμερον γενέσθαι τοιούτους, ὁποῖος κἀγώ εἰμι παρεκτὸς τῶν δεσμῶν τούτων. Acts xxvi. 28, 29.
When I preached on a like occasion last year, I spoke at some length of the prospects of Christian missions,24 and I ventured to give seven grounds which the peculiar circumstances of our time afforded for greater confidence in the future. First, the better knowledge of the Divine nature acquired by the extinction of the once universal belief that all heathens were everlastingly lost; secondly, the increased acquaintance with the heathen religions themselves; thirdly, the instruction which Christian missionaries have gained or may gain from their actual experience in foreign parts; fourthly, the recognition of the fact that the main hindrance to the success of Christian missions arises from the vices and sins of Christendom; fifthly, an acknowledgment of the indirect influences of Christianity through legislation and civilization; sixthly, the newly awakened perception of the duty of making exact, unvarnished, impartial statements on this subject; seventhly, the testimony borne by missionary experience to the common elements and essential principles of the Christian religion.
On these—the peculiar grounds for hope and for exertion in this our generation—I content myself with referring to the observations which I then made, and which I will not now repeat.
I propose on this occasion to make a few remarks on the End and on the Means of Christian Missions; remarks which must of necessity be general in their import, but which for that reason are the more suitable to be offered by one who cannot speak from personal and special experience.
The text is taken from a striking incident in the life of the greatest of apostolic missionaries. It was in the presence of Festus and Agrippa that Paul had poured forth those few burning utterances which to Festus seemed like madness, but which Paul himself declared to be words of truth and soberness. Then it was that the Jewish prince, Agrippa—far better instructed and seeing deeper into Paul’s mind than the heathen Festus, yet still unconvinced—broke in upon the conversation with the words which in the English translation have well nigh passed into a proverb, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” The sense which they thus give would be in itself perfectly suitable to the halting, fickle character of the Herodian family, and would accurately describe the numerous half-converts throughout the world—“Almost,” but not quite, “thou persuadest me to join the good cause.” But the sense which, by the nearly universal consent of modern scholars, they really bear in the original is something still more instructive. The only meaning of which the Greek words are capable is an exclamation, half in jest and half in earnest, “It is but a very brief and simple argument that you offer to work so great a change;” or, if we may venture to bring out the sense more forcibly, “So few words, and such a vast conclusion!” “So slight a foundation, and so gigantic a superstructure!” “So scanty an outfit, and so perilous an enterprise!” The speech breathes something of the spirit of Naaman, when he was told to wash in the Jordan—“Are not Abana and Pharpar better than all the waters of Israel?” It is like the complaint of the popular prophets in the time of Hezekiah, whose taste demanded stronger flavor than the noble simplicity of Isaiah, “Thou givest us only line upon line, precept upon precept.” It breathes the spirit of the Ephesian Christians who, when they heard St. John’s repeated maxim of “Little children, love one another,” said, “Is this all that he has to tell us?” It expresses the spirit of many an one since, who has stumbled at the threshold of the genuine Gospel—“So vague, so simple, so universal. Is this worth the sacrifice that you demand? Give us a demonstrative argument, a vast ceremonial, a complex system, a uniform government. Nothing else will satisfy us.”
As Agrippa’s objection, so is Paul’s answer. It would have indeed borne a good sense had he meant what in our English version he is made to say, “I would that thou wert converted both ‘almost and altogether.’ Halfness or wholeness—I admire them both. Half a soul is better than none at all. To have come half way is better than never to have started at all; but half is only good, because it leads towards the whole.” Nevertheless, following the real meaning of Agrippa’s remark, St. Paul’s retort, in fact, bears a yet deeper significance—“I would to God, that whether by little or by much, whether by brief arguments or by long arguments, somehow and somewhere, the change were wrought. The means to me are comparatively nothing, so long as the end is accomplished.” It is the same spirit as that which dictated the noble expression in the Epistle to the Philippians: “Some preach Christ of envy and strife, some also of good will. The one preach Christ of contention, the other of love. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached.”25
And then he proceeds to vindicate the end which makes him indifferent as to the means. Agrippa, in his brief taunt, had said, “Such are the arguments by which you would fain make me a Christian.” It is one of the few, one of the only three occasions on which that glorious name is used in the New Testament. It is here charged not with the venerable meaning which we now attach to it, but with the novel and degrading associations which it bore in the mouth of every Jew and every Roman at that time—of Tacitus or Josephus, no less than of Festus or Agrippa. “Is it,” so the king meant to say, “is it that you think to make me a Christian, a member of that despised, heretical, innovating sect, of which the very name is a sufficient condemnation?”
It is only by bearing this in mind that we see the force of St. Paul’s answer. He does not insist on the word; he does not fight even for this sacred title; he does not take it up as a pugnacious champion might take up the glove which his adversary had thrown down; he does not say, “I would that thou wast a Christian.” In his answer he bears his testimony to one of the gravest, the most fruitful, of all theological truths—that it is not the name but the thing, not the form but the reality, on which stress must be laid; and he gives the most lucid, heart-stirring illustration of what the reality is. “I would that not only thou, but all those who hear me were (I ask for no ambiguous catchword or byword, but) what you see before you; I would that you all were such as I am—such as I am, upheld by the hopes, filled with the affections, that sustain my charmed existence;” and then, with that exquisite courtesy which characterizes so many traits of the Apostle’s history, glancing at the chains which bound him to the Roman guard—“‘except these bonds.’ This, whether you call it Christian or not, is what I desire to see you and all the world.” “You see it before you in the life, the character, the spirit, of one who knows what Christianity is, and who wishes that all his fellow-creatures should partake of the happiness that he has gained, repose on the same principles that give him strength.” This, then, is the statement of the greatest of missionaries, both as to the end which he sought to attain, and the means by which he and we should seek to attain it.
I. Let us first take the End: “Such as I am, except these bonds.” That is the state to which St. Paul desired to bring all those who heard him. That, according to him, was the description of a Christian. No doubt if he had been pressed yet further, he would have said that he meant, “Such as Jesus Christ, my Lord.” But he was satisfied with taking such a living, human, imperfect exemplification as he whom Festus and Agrippa saw in their presence. “Such as Paul was.” Here is no ambiguous definition, no obsolete form. What manner of man he was we know even better than Festus or Agrippa knew. Look at him with all his characteristic peculiarities; a man passionately devoted to his own faithful friends, and clinging to the reminiscences of his race and country, yet with a heart open to embrace all mankind; a man combining the strongest convictions with an unbounded toleration of differences, and an unbounded confidence in truth; a man penetrated with the freedom of the Spirit, but with a profound appreciation of the value of great existing institutions, whether civil or religious—a thorough Roman citizen and a thorough Eastern gentleman; embarked on a career of daring fortitude and endurance, undertaken in the strength of the persuasion that in Jesus Christ of Nazareth he had seen the highest perfection of Divine and human goodness—a Master worth living for and worth dying for, whose Spirit was to be the regenerating power of the whole world. This character, this condition it was to which St. Paul desired that his hearers should be brought. One only reservation he makes; “except these bonds,” except those limitations, those circumscriptions, those vexations, those irritations, which belonged to the suffering, toil-worn circumstances in which he was at that moment placed.
Such is the aim which, following the example of their most illustrious predecessor, all missionaries ought to have before their eyes. To create, to preach, to exhibit those elements of character, those apostolical graces, those Divine intuitions, which even the hard Roman magistrate and the superficial Jewish prince recognized in Paul of Tarsus. Where these are, there is Christianity. In proportion as any of these are attained, in that proportion has a human being become a Christian. Wherever and in proportion as these are not, there the missionary’s labor has failed—there the seed has been sown to no purpose—there the name of Christian may be, but the reality is not.
This preëminence of the object of Christian missions—namely, the formation of heroic, apostolic, and therefore Christian characters—has a wide practical importance. In these days—when there is so much temptation to dwell on the scaffolding, the apparatus, the organization of religion, as though it were religion itself—it is doubly necessary to bear in mind what true Religion is, wherein lies the essential superiority of Christianity to all the other forms of religion on the surface of the earth. It is not merely the baptism of thousands of infants, such as filled a large part of the aspirations even of so great a missionary as Francis Xavier; nor the adoption of the name of Christ, as was done on so vast a scale by the ferocious rebels of China; nor the repetition, with ever so much accuracy, of the Christian creed, as was done by the pretended converts from Mahommedanism or Judaism, under the terrible compulsion of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain. Nor is it the assurance ever so frequently repeated, that we are saved; nor is it the absolution, ever so solemnly pronounced by a priest; nor is it the shedding of floods of tears; nor is it the adoption of voluntary self-degradation or solitary seclusion. All these may be found in other religions in even greater force than in Christianity. That which alone, if anything, stamps Christianity as the supreme religion, is that its essence, its object, is in none of these things, valuable as some of them may be as signs and symptoms of the change which every mission is intended to effect. The change itself, the end itself, Christianity itself, is at once greater and simpler. It is to be such as Paul was; it is to produce characters, which in truthfulness, in independence, in mercy, in purity, in charity, may recall something of the great Apostle, even as he recalled something of the mind which was in Christ Jesus. It was this clear vision of what he desired to see as the fruits of his teaching that made St. Paul so ready to admire whatsoever things were lovely and of good report wherever he found them. In Gentile or in Jew, in heathen or in Christian, he recognized at once the spirits kindred to his own, and welcomed them accordingly. He felt that he could raise them yet higher; but he was eager to claim them as his brethren even from the first.26 Even in the legends which surround his history there has been preserved something of this genuine apostolic sympathy. It was a fine touch in the ancient Latin hymn which described how, when he landed at Puteoli, he turned aside to the hill of Pausilipo to shed a tear over the tomb of Virgil, and thought how much he might have made of that noble soul if he had found him still on earth:—
“Ad Maronis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Piæ rorem lacrymæ—
‘Quantum,’ dixit, ‘te fecissem
Si te vivum invenissem,
Poetarum maxime.’”
It was this which made him cling with such affectionate interest to his converts, to his friends, to his sons, as he calls them, in Christ Jesus. All that he sought, all that he looked for in them, was that they should show in their characters the seal of the spirit that animated himself. Whether they derived this character from himself or from Apollos or Cephas he cared not to ask. He was their pupil as much as their master. He disclaimed all dominion over their independent faith; he claimed only to be a helper in their joy.
This reproduction of Paul—this reproduction of all that is best in ourselves or better than ourselves—in the minds and hearts of mankind, is the true work of the Christian missionary; and, in order to do this, he must be himself that which he wishes to impress upon them in humility, goodness, courtesy, and holiness, except only the straitening bonds which cramp or confine each separate character, nation, and church. No disparager of Christian missions can dispute this *—no champion of Christian missions need go beyond this. When, in the last century, the Danish missionary, Schwarz, was pursuing his labors at Tanjore, and the Rajah Hyder Ali desired to treat with the English government, he said: “Do not send to me any of your agents, for I trust neither their words nor their treaties. But send to me the missionary of whose character I hear so much from every one; him will I receive and trust.” That was the electrifying, vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one as Paul—“a man who had indeed done nothing worthy of bonds or of death”—a man in whose entire disinterestedness and in whose transparent honor the image and superscription of his Master was written so that no one could mistake it. “In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness” is the noblest work of God our Creator—the most precious result of human endeavor. If any such—by missionary efforts, either of convert or teacher, either direct or indirect—have been produced, then the prayers uttered, the labors inspired, the hopes expressed in these and like services have not been altogether in vain. One of the most striking facts to which our attention has been called as demanding our thankfulness on this day is the solemn testimony borne by the Government of India to the fruits of “the blameless lives and self-denying labors of its six hundred Protestant missionaries.” And what are those fruits? Not merely the adoption of this or that outward form of Christianity by this or that section of the Indian community. It is something which is in appearance less, but in reality far greater than this. It is something less like the question of Agrippa, but more like the answer of Paul. It is that they have “infused new vigor into the stereotyped life of the vast populations placed under English rule;” it is that they are “preparing those populations to be in every way better men and better citizens of the great Empire under which they dwell.” That is a verdict on which we can rest with the assurance that it is not likely to be reversed. Individual conversions may relapse—may be accounted for by special motives; but long-sustained, wide-reaching changes of the whole tenor and bent of a man or of a nation are beyond suspicion. When we see the immovable, and, as the official document says, “the stereotyped” forms of Indian life re-animated with a vigor unknown to the Oriental races in earlier days, this is a regeneration as surprising as that which, to a famous missionary of the past generation, seemed as impossible as the restoration of a mummy to life—namely, the conversion of a single Brahmin.
This, then, is the End of Christian missions, whether to heathens or to Christians, namely, to make better men and better citizens—to raise the whole of society by inspiring it with a higher view of duty, with a stronger sense of truth; with a more powerful conviction that only by goodness and truth can God be approached or Christ be served—that God is goodness and truth, and that Christ is the Image of God, because He is goodness and truth. If this be the legitimate result of Christianity, no further arguments are needed to prove that it contains a light which is worth imparting, and which, wherever it is imparted, vindicates its heavenly origin and its heavenly tendency.
II. This is the End; and now what are the Means? They are what we might expect in the view of so great an end. Anything (so the Apostle tells us), be it small or great, short or long, scanty or ample,—the manners of a Jew for Jews, the manners of a Gentile for Gentiles, “all things for all men,”27—are worth considering if “by any of these means he might save,” that is, elevate, sanctify, purify any of those to whom he spoke. When we reflect upon the many various efforts to do good in this manifold world—the multitude of sermons, societies, agencies, excitements, which to some seem as futile and fruitless as to others they seem precious and important—it is a true consolation to bear in mind the Apostle’s wise and generous maxim, “Whether by little or by much, whether in pretence or in truth, whether of strife or of good will, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” It may be by a short, sudden, electric shock, or it may be by a long course of civilizing, humanizing tendencies. It may be by a single text, such as that which awoke the conscience of Augustine; or a single interview like Justin’s with the unknown philosopher; or it may be by a long systematic treatise—Butler’s “Analogy,” or Lardner’s “Credibilia,” or the “Institutes” of Calvin, or the “Summa Theologiæ” of Aquinas. It may be by the sudden flush of victory in battle, such as convinced Clovis on the field of Tolbiac; or the argument of a peaceful conference, such as convinced our own Ethelbert. It may be by teachers steeped in what was by half the Christian world regarded as deadly heresy, such as the Arian Bishop Ulfilas, by whom were converted to the faith those mighty Gothic tribes which formed the first elements of European Christendom, and whose deeds Augustine regarded, notwithstanding their errors, as the glory of the Christian name.28 It may be by teachers immersed in superstitions as barbarous, as completely repudiated by the civilized world, as were those of the famous Roman Pontiff who sent the first missionaries to these shores. Sometimes the change has been effected by the sight of a single picture, as when Vladimir of Russia was shown the representation of the Last Judgment; sometimes by a dream or a sign, known only to those who were affected by it—such as the vision of the Cross which arrested Constantine on his way to Rome, or changed Colonel Gardiner’s dissolute youth to a manhood of strict and sober piety. Sometimes it has been by the earnest preaching of missionaries, confessedly ill-educated and ill-prepared for the work which they had to accomplish; sometimes by the slow infiltration of Christian literature and Christian civilization; the grandeur, in old days, of Rome and Constantinople; in our days, the superiority of European genius, the spread of English commerce, the establishment of just laws, pure homes, merciful institutions.
We do not say that all these means are equally good or equally efficacious. St. Paul, in his argument with Agrippa, did not mean to say that “almost and altogether,” that “much and little,” were the same; he did not mean that it was equally good that Christ should be preached in strife or in good-will; he did not mean that a good end justified bad means, or that we may do evil that good may come; he did not mean to justify the falsehoods which are profanely called pious frauds, nor the persecutions which have been set on foot by those who thought to do God service, or the attempt to stimulate artificial excitement by undermining the moral strength and manly independence of the human spirit. God forbid! But what he meant, and what we mean with him, is this: In true Christian missions, in the conversion of human souls from dead works, from sin, from folly, from barbarism, from hardness, from selfishness, to goodness and purity, justice and truth, the field is so vast, the diversity of character in men and nations is so infinite, the enterprise so arduous, the aspects of Divine truth so various, that it is on the one hand a duty for each one to follow out that particular means of conversion which seems to him most efficacious, and on the other hand to acquiesce in the converging use of many means which cannot, by the nature of the case, appear equally efficacious to every one. Such a toleration, such an adoption of the different modes of carrying on what John Bunyan called “the Holy War,” “the Siege of Man’s Soul,” must indeed be always controlled by the determination to keep the high, paramount, universal end always in view; by the vigilant endeavor to repress the exaggeration, to denounce the follies and the falsehoods which infect even the best attempts of narrow and fallible, though good and faithful, servants of their Lord. But, if once we have this principle fixed in our minds, it surely becomes a solace to remember that the soul of man is won by a thousand different approaches—that thus the instruments which often seem most unworthy may yet serve to produce a result far above themselves—that when “we have toiled all night and taken nothing” by keeping close to the shore, or by throwing out our nets always on one side, yet if we have courage “to launch out into the deep, and cast out our nets on the other side of the ship,” we shall “enclose a great multitude of fishes, so that the net shall break.”
He is a traitor to the cause who exalts the means above the end, or who seeks an end altogether different from that to which his allegiance binds him; but he is not a traitor, but a faithful soldier, who makes the best use of all the means that are placed in his hands. Long after the imperfect instruments have perished the results will endure, and in forms wholly unlike the insufficiency or the meagreness of the first propelling cause. The preaching of Henry Martyn may have been tinged by a zeal often not according to knowledge; but the savor of his holy and self-denying life has passed like a sweet-smelling incense through the whole framework of Indian society. “Even,” so he said himself, “if I should never see a native converted, God may design by my patience and continuance in the work to encourage future missionaries.”
The more profoundly we are impressed with the degradation of the heathen nations, with the corruption of the Christian churches, the more thankful should we be for any attempts, however slight and however various, to quicken the sluggish mass, and enlighten the blackness of the night, provided only that the mass is permanently quickened, and the darkness is in any measure dispelled. “I have lived too long,” said Lord Macaulay on his return from India to England, “I have lived too long in a country where people worship cows, to think much of the differences which part Christians from Christians.” And, in fact, as the official report to which I have referred testifies in strong terms, the presence of the great evils which Indian missionaries have to confront, has often produced in them a noble and truly Christian indifference to the trivial divergences between themselves. “Even a one-eyed man,” says the proverb, “is a king amongst the blind.” Even the shepherd’s sling may perchance smite down the Goliath of Gath. The rough sledge-hammer of a rustic preacher may strike home, where the most polished scholar would plead in vain. The calm judgment of the wise and good, or the silent example, or the understanding sympathy, or the wide survey of the whole field of the religions of mankind, may awaken convictions which all the declamations of all the churches would fail to arouse.
The misery of the war on the coast of Africa, the terrible prospect of the Indian famine, may furnish the very opening which we most desire. They may be the very touchstones by which these suffering heathens will test the practical efficiency of a Christian government and a Christian nation, of Christian missionaries and Christian people, and, having so tested it, will judge.
When the first Napoleon suddenly found himself among the quicksands of the Red Sea he ordered his generals to ride out in so many opposite directions, and the first who arrived on firm ground to call on the rest to follow. This is what we may ask of all the various schemes and agencies—all the various inquiries after truth now at work in all the different branches and classes of Christendom—“Ride out amongst those quicksands! Ride out in the most opposite directions, and let him that first finds solid ground call out to us! It may perchance be the very ground in the midst of this quaking morass where we shall be able to stand firm and move the world.”
There is one special variety of means which I would venture to name in conclusion. Ever since the close of the Apostolic age there have been two separate agencies in the Christian Church by which the work of conversion has been carried on. The chief, the recognized, the ordinary agency has been that of the clergy. Every presbyter, every bishop in the Church of the first ages, and again in the beginning of Christian Europe, was, in the strict sense of the word, a missionary; and although their functions have in these latter days been for the most part best fulfilled by following their stationary, fixed, pastoral charges, yet it is still from their ranks in all the different churches that the noble army of missionaries and martyrs in foreign lands has been, and is and must be recruited. Most unwise and unworthy would be any word which should underrate the importance of this mighty element in the work of renewing the face of the earth. But there has always been recognized, more or less distinctly, the agency of Christian laymen in this same work of evangelization. Not only in that more general sense in which I have already indicated the effect of the laws, and literature, and influence of Christian Europe—not only in that unquestionable sense in which the best of all missionaries is a high-minded governor, or an upright magistrate, or a devout and pure-minded soldier, who is always “trusting in God and doing his duty;” not only in these senses do we look for the coöperation of laymen, but also in the more direct forms of instruction, of intelligent and far-seeing interest in labors, which, though carried on mainly by the clergy, must, if they are to be good for anything, concern all mankind alike. In the early centuries of Christianity the aid of laymen was freely invoked and freely given in this great cause. Such was Origen, the most learned and the most gifted of the Fathers, who preached as a layman in the presence of presbyters and bishops. Such was one of the first evangelizers of India, Pantænus; such was the hermit Telemachus, whose earnest protest, aided by his heroic death, extinguished at Rome the horrors of the gladiatorial games; such was Antony, the mighty preacher in the wilds of the Thebaid and the streets of Alexandria; such, in later days, was Francis of Assisi, when first he began his career as the most famous preacher of the Middle Ages; such, just before the Reformation, was our own Sir Thomas More.29 In these instances, as in many others, the influence, the learning, the zeal of laymen, was directly imported into the work of Christianizing the nations of Europe. It is for this reason that we in our age also, so far as the law and order of our churches permit, have frequently received the assistance of laymen; who, by the weight of their character or their knowledge, can render a fresh testimony, or throw a fresh light on subjects where we, the clergy, should perhaps be heard less willingly. As their voices have been raised on this sacred subject of missions in many a humble parish church; as also on other sacred topics, such as Christian art and history, their words have often been heard within the consecrated walls of this and other great abbeys and cathedrals;—so, in the hope that a more systematic form may thus be given to our knowledge, and a more concentrated direction to our zeal, we shall have the privilege of listening this evening in the nave of this church to a scholar renowned throughout the world, whose knowledge of all heathen religions, ancient and modern, in their relation to the experience of Christian missions, probably exceeds that of any other single person in Europe.
I conclude by once more applying the Apostle’s words to the Means and the End of Christian missions. We would to God that whether by little or by much, whether by sudden stroke or by elaborate reasoning, whether in a brief moment or by long process of years, whether by the fervor of active clergy, or by the learning of impartial laymen, whether by illiterate simplicity or by wide philosophy—not only those who hear me, but all on whom the services of this day, far and near, have any influence, may become, at least in some degree, such as was Paul the Apostle, such as have been the wisest and best of Christian missionaries, except only those bonds which belong to time and place, not to the Eternal Spirit and the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot wish a better wish, or pray a better prayer to God on this day than that amongst the missionaries who teach, amongst the heathens who hear, there should be raised up men who should exhibit that type of Christian truth and of Christian life which was seen by Festus and Agrippa in Paul of Tarsus. May the Giver of all good gifts give to us some portion of his cheerful and manly faith, of his fearless energy, of his horror of narrowness and superstition, of his love for God and for mankind, of his absolute faith in the triumph of his Redeemer’s cause. May God our Father waken in us the sense that we are all his children; may the whole earth become more and more one fold under one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ his Son; may the Holy Spirit of Heaven