Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876 by Various
page 53 of 284 (18%)
page 53 of 284 (18%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
convictions as shall secure his eternal happiness. To these cardinal
principles we subjoin the most unlimited toleration for other religions, recognizing in its fullest extent the law of the adaptation of the forms of relief to the varying moulds of character resulting from race, climate and all those great conditions of existence which differentiate men one from another." [Illustration: CHARIOT OF THE PROCESSION OF THE RATTJATTRA, AT JAGHERNÂTH.] "How," I asked, "do the efforts of the Christian missionaries comport with your own sect's?" "Substantially, we work together. With the sincerest good wishes for their success--for every sensible man must hail any influence which instills a single new idea into the wretched Bengalee of low condition--I am yet free to acknowledge that I do not expect the missionaries to make many converts satisfactory to themselves, for I am inclined to think them not fully aware of the fact that in importing Christianity among the Hindus they have not only brought the doctrine, but they have brought the _Western form_ of it, and I fear that they do not recognize how much of the nature of substance this matter of form becomes when one is attempting to put new wine into old bottles. Nevertheless, God speed them! I say. We are all full of hope. Signs of the day meet us everywhere. It is true that still, if you put yourself on the route to Orissa, you will meet thousands of pilgrims who are going to the temple at Jaghernâth (what your Sunday-school books call Juggernaut) for the purpose of worshiping the hideous idols which it contains; and although the English policemen accompany the procession of the Rattjattra--when the idol is drawn on the monstrous |
|