on separate schools or opinions regarding the relations between God and man, and the proper ways and means of attaining to spiritual emancipation. For the whole purpose of the higher Brahminism is to find and show the path which leads upward, from the simple, unvarnished popular superstitions to the true and pure knowledge of the Supreme Being, by laying out a connection between the upper and lower aspects of religion. One of the cardinal points upon which the two systems differ is in regard to what are called the Avatars-the bodily appearance of the Deity upon earth.

Vishnu, according to those who belong to Vaishnava tradition, has several times descended upon earth, and has appeared in various forms. From the high spiritual point of view, this tradition may be interpreted as a devout belief which helps worshippers to realize, so to speak, the relations between divinity and humanity, which brings the Supreme Being within our limited powers of conception, establishes a bond of sympathy, and allows us to address to Him prayers and offerings. In fact, the dogma of Avatars is symbolical of the spiritual link and intercourse between God and man; it sanctions and gives meaning to a widespread popular tradition, that divinities sometimes come down and mingle with mortals and their affairs.

Siva, on the other hand, is never represented by an image, always by an emblem of his powers,

destructive or regenerative. He has no Avatars; and the high theologians of this school refuse to admit that the Deity assumes visible embodiment. They argue that, by assuming a man's body, He would become subject to the laws of mortality, to changes, imperfections, human passions, and the like, to birth and death-and this they hold to be impossible, and inconsistent with the divine nature. The Avatar, they say, is an illusion. They permit and encourage all the rites and worships of the people as making generally for devotion; but they maintain that the only true spiritual path to salvation, for the superior intelligences, is by ascetic practices, by meditation, by separation from all worldly thoughts and cares; so that the soul gradually obtains true communion with the Supreme Being, and becomes at last absorbed, like a drop in the ocean, into light and rest. The metaphor sometimes employed is that the soul is like the flickering lamp, tossed by the winds and darkness, which loses itself completely in bright, noon-day sunshine, and remains still and quiet. To this doctrine the reply of the Vishnu worshipper (I am quoting from a writer in a contemporary Hindu magazine the Dawn) is that it is too high for the people. Worship and prayer can only be addressed by ordinary folk to a personified Deity. The spiritual Brahma may be realized by intense thought and constant discipline of the mind, so that spirit can commune with spirit; but only the

ascetic who has arrived at the loftiest stage of devotional contemplation can reach this height. In the mean time, what is to be prescribed for the untrained, inferior souls? Man's spiritual cravings are as strong and as natural as his physical wants. What, then, should be his spiritual food? He should take shelter under something, to inspire him with hope, liberate him from fear, and qualify him to be grateful and loving, so that he may be loved in return. A theology which does not attempt to be popular can never be generally useful; and so it is necessary to accept and believe in ways of approaching the Deity that can be used and understood by the people. Yet, each of these two schools only professes to show a different path to the same goal of the soul's liberation, and its absorption into Pure Intelligence; for the Hindu mind cannot accept, as an ultimate notion, a personal Deity caught in the meshes of time, space, and causality. It must follow until He is placed somewhere beyond all phenomenal relations; although the problem of reconciling the conditional with the unconditional remains insoluble. This, I repeat, is the high philosophical religion at the back of the rough, outward, popular worship of all kinds of animals, stocks and stones, natural forces, deified men, local gods, and so on. I do not think that the common paganism of Europe in the old times had anything like this behind it, any more than the wild superstitions of uncivilized races have in other parts of the world

at this day. And, certainly, the Indian religions have one great advantage unknown, I think, to the ancient polytheisms-they have their sacred books.

This, then, is the philosophic religion at the back of the popular worship, to which it gives an explanation and a final purpose. For Brahminism holds out to all men, as its scheme of salvation, the hope of escape from the pain and weariness of sensitive existence in any shape or stage. If a Hindu be asked what is the object and ultimate good that he is striving to reach through religious rites and devotional exercises, he will answer "Liberation." Whether he be peasant or pundit, his reply will be the same; he must free his soul, the divine particle, from the bondage of the senses, from the pressure of encompassing phenomena, and so gradually become united with spiritual infinity. To attain this union, it must pass through very many bodies or forms of life; and whether the passage be short or long, easy or arduous, depends upon a man's deeds, whether they be good or ill, pleasing or displeasing to the high gods. Belief in the transmigration of souls is common among all primitive races, having probably been stamped on the imagination of mankind by the constant alternation of death and life in the natural order of things animate. With the Hindus, it has become, universally, the shape into which they have cast the instinctive clinging to some future existence which belongs to all humanity;

they are convinced that each birth is a waking out of sleep and a forgetting; and to the conception of a long journey, with many stages, they have added the good or moral purpose of purification and final changelessness. The inner self, that which speaks, is but a particle of the divine essence, which passes like a drop of water through cloud and river into the ocean. When we realize this to be the effective creed of Brahminism, we can understand how such a system, with its long, laborious way to salvation, its antipathy to action, its preference of grace to works, and its conception of divinity as something impersonal, remote, and everywhere diffused, stands totally apart from the energetic, unwavering religions of the West, from firm reliance on a personal God, the Judge and Moral Governor of mankind, to whom all must give immediate account after death.

In regard to the sacred books, they contain, partly, the sayings, precepts, and mystic utterances of the ancient sages; partly, prayers and psalms; and, partly, abstruse speculations on the divine nature, with scholastic dissertations and commentaries. The modern students and teachers of the various schools or sects of Brahminism treat these books as authoritative, and are constantly discussing, expounding, or adapting them to the ideas and circumstances of a people that is becoming profoundly affected by European modes of thought. One thing must be noticed in these books, that they are not historical; they