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It may be appropriate here, before leaving the subject of the Second Birth, to inquire how it has come about that this doctrine so remote and metaphysical as it might appear has been taken up and embodied in their creeds and rituals by quite PRIMITIVE people all over the world, to such a degree indeed that it has ultimately been adopted and built into the foundations of the latter and more intellectual religions, like Hinduism, Mithraism, and the Egyptian and Christian cults.
But the prodigious amplification of Hinduism was mainly due to the absorption of beliefs prevalent in Indian districts other than the homes of the ancient Brahmans. Thus south Indian religion is characterized when we first know it by its emotional tone and it resulted in the mediaeval Sivaism of the Tamil country.
In proof of the latter statement, we recall the words of Swami Vivekananda, representative of Hinduism in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, in a lecture "The Real and the Apparent Man," published in 1896.
But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave the exoteric statement of the Trinity that in connection with all these Trinities there is a fourth fundamental manifestation, the Power of the God, and this has always a feminine form. In Hinduism each Person in the Trinity has His manifested Power, the One and these six aspects making up the sacred Seven.
Nature seems to have taught that secluded race of Tibetans a more primitive religion than modern Hinduism. It is a religion mixed with Buddhism, but preserving the earlier view of a divinity in natural objects, which Hinduism has almost wholly outgrown. Our next point of investigation was Benares, "the holy city," the Mecca and Jerusalem of the Hindus.
The ceremonialism of the Scribes and Pharisees in the days of our Lord and which excited His supreme wrath, was not a consequence as compared to that of Hinduism to-day. To the ordinary Hindu, all of life's values are measured in the coin of external rites. Let one be an atheist if he please, or even a libertine or a murderer, and his status in Hinduism is not impaired.
To some extent Hinduism showed a united front against Buddhism, but the older Brahmanism had no organization which enabled it to stand as a separate Church in opposition to movements which it disliked.
Let me next call attention to some of the predicted deliverers for whom the nations have been looking. Nothing found in the study of the religious history of mankind is more striking than the universality of a vague expectation of coming messiahs. According to the teachings of Hinduism there have been nine incarnations of Vishnu, of whom Buddha was admitted to be one.
But strangely enough, the Christian Church has seemed to regard this subject as scarcely worthy of serious consideration. With the exception of a very able work on Buddhism, and several review articles on Hinduism, written by Professor S.H. Kellogg, very little has been published from the Christian standpoint.
To-day there is no more discontented community in India than the Sikhs. Government aid is therefore no solution. The second is rejection of Hinduism and wholesale conversion to Islam or Christianity. And if a change of religion could be justified for worldly betterment, I would advise it without hesitation. But religion is a matter of the heart.
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