STUDY III. THE DISTINCTIVE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY.

"And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful: who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practice them." (Rom. i. 28-32.)

PART 5. STANDARDS OF MORALITY IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.

It cannot be doubted that the non-Christian religions have many splendid moral precepts. We have paid little attention to Confucianism in these studies, but here one ought to say that the Confucian standard of morals is high. The golden rule, though expressed negatively, the high reverence for parents, the inculcation of virtue, courage, benevolence, loyalty-all these are splendid. But in Confucianism God is ignored, woman is degraded, polygamy sanctioned, and no power is given whereby the other virtues may be attained. China, leprous with sin and degradation, is a full and sufficient answer to Confucian ethics as a final system.

Mohammedanism inculcates the highest reverence for God, mercy to captives, charity to the needy, patience in hardships, sobriety, and kindness. These are all well worth while. But side by side with these precepts it inculcates the most bitter cruelty to, and persecution of, non-believers; slavery is directly and positively sanctioned; lying to women justified;

woman is degraded and made a tool of man's lust, and even heaven itself is a land where every man may have unnumbered houris to minister to his debased passion. No one who reads the Koran, much less any one who views the practical outcome of the Mohammedan code of morals, can find any final standard there.

Hindu moral codes differ with the numerous sects, but on the whole it may be said that all alike teach self-control, truthfulness, and the sanctity of the marriage relation. The more cultured sect, following the Bhagavad-Gita as their sacred book, may be said to have a fair code of morals. But no religion can pose as having a final standard for morals which sets up in its temples carvings which are such a travesty of morality and decency that no Christian woman can visit the temple. Nor can it hope to have much moral power when its gods in incarnate form are notorious as thieves and licentious beyond measure, and a part of its sacred books must be condemned by the English government as obscene literature.

In Buddhism there is the most utter confusion of essentials and nonessentials. Thus, sleeping on a trundle-bed is put side by side with hatred, pride, self-righteousness. Morality is a code and not a principle. Not only so, but all basis for morality is cut from beneath a Buddhist's feet, for he believes in neither self nor God, and there can be no moral duty for either.

None of these religions can satisfy our sense of moral life. They are the morals of a stationary code, and cannot meet the needs of growing life.

STUDY III. THE DISTINCTIVE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY.

What grief

Springs of itself and springs not of desire?
Senses and things perceived mingle and light
Passion's quick spark of fire.

This is peace:

To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,
To still this inward strife.

Arnold's "The Light of Asia.”

PART 6. CONCEPTION OF SALVATION IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.

By the word salvation we do not here refer specially to the future life. This is simply a resultant of salvation. Salvation is what a religion proposes to do for us here and now.

In accordance with the Mohammedan idea of sin, as the transgression of the arbitrary mandate of God-often without regard to the fundamental conception of right and wrong -the result of sin is disfavor, but not guilt. Sin does not have the quality of guilt which it has for Christians. Hence Mohammedan salvation is not forgiveness but indulgence; not freedom from guilt, but freedom from punishment. A man who still has a murderous heart may gain entrance into paradise, if only God pleases to be indulgent. Personal holiness is not inculcated as the goal for Mohammedan character.

According to Hinduism, the supreme evil of life is this embodied existence which continually returns in a new-embodied form. To get rid of this round of rebirth, to get away from embodied existence, to be reabsorbed into the divine, is the one conception of salvation. This can be attained only

by the complete denial of the self, with all its desires and passions. Hence salvation is the going out of the fires of life.

Buddhism is much akin to this. It also seeks freedom from embodied existence. It is necessary thereto that a man extinguish all desire, all passion, all thought; then he will pass out of this deluded state into nirvana, the state where he is at rest and without desire, without anxiety. Finally, when this present embodied existence is dissolved, he will simply be snuffed out; he will have attained extinction (parra-nibbana). This is final and complete salvation. It is simply a nihilism.

STUDY III. THE DISTINCTIVE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY.

How many births are past I cannot tell;
How many births to come no man can say.
But this alone I know and know full well,
That pain and grief embitter all the way.

-South India Folk Song.

PART 7. DO THE NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS SATISFY?

We have very briefly set forth the non-Christian conceptions of God, man, sin, morality, salvation, and we must now ask in conclusion: Do these religions satisfy the souls of men? "The religious problem," says Professor Knox, "is: Given man, dependent and ignorant, with feelings, fears, hopes, hatreds, loves, in the midst of he knows not what dangers and difficulties; how shall he be triumphant over fear and sin and death? How shall he live in peace and make existence not only endurable but worthy? Thus, though some may regret it, the direct and fundamental proofs of our religion can be found only in its satisfaction of the cravings of the soul, and by its adaptation to the highest wants of society through its ethical activities.""

Measured by these standards, do the non-Christian religions prove adequate? The supreme craving in every human soul is for fellowship with a higher kindred power. Browning has well voiced this hunger of the soul in his splendid words in "Pauline:"

The last point I can trace is, rest, beneath

Some better essence than itself, in weakness;

"Direct and Fundamental Proofs of the Christian Religion,” pp. 156 and 173.