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munion with Pure Spirit thicken as you come down to the later and more philosophical disquisitions known as the Upanishads. Everywhere in these books you meet the All-Holy Spirit; every page almost reveals Him. One feels weary as he goes through these volumes of the Vedanta, which contain nothing but reiterated descriptions of the Supreme Brahma. How the Upanishads magnify the Supreme Spirit will appear from such striking passages as these : "He moves, He moves not; He is far, He is near too; He is within these, He also dwells without." "Smaller than the smallest is the Supreme Spirit, and greater is He than the greatest. He dwells in the hearts of living beings. He who is free from sorrows, perceives the Lord who transcends the senses, and beholds His glory through His Grace." "He hath no hands and yet He holdeth ; He hath no eye and yet He seeth; He hath no ear and yet He heareth." "He whom the Brahmins praise is the eternal Brahma." These precious truths have we received from our venerable ancestors. Richer far than gold and silver is the doctrine of the Spirit-God they have bequeathed unto us as a heavenly legacy. A God not of clay or stone, not fashioned by mortal hands, not spun of delusive fancy, but the Real Spirit-God, immanent in the universe and in the inmost soul, that God, recognised all over India as Brahma, has been revealed to us by our forefathers. Ye venerable Rishis and devotees of ancient India ! -at your holy feet modern India lays her humble tribute of gratitude for this priceless legacy! Gentlemen, was the God of our forefathers a mere metaphysical abstraction, a prolongation as it were into the outward universe of men's intellectual consciousness? Was their Deity nothing but thin air or a romantic fancy? I emphatically say, no. It was the

reality of God-head that our ancestors sought and worshipped. Did they renounce the world, its riches and pleasures and honors in quest of some aerial phantom? Did they sacrifice their all for a fiction? Did they leave father, mother, wife and children, and go into solitary retreats but to indulge in a mere idea? No, that cannot be. If they erred at all, they erred in making too much of the encompassing presence of the Supreme Spirit, a presence they saw and felt, and in which they often merged and lost self. Their consciousness of the real presence of God was so overpowering as to kill self-consciousness, and their communion was in many cases nothing but pantheistic absorption. They never recognised an unreal divinity. Never. They rather magnified the dazzling reality of their God so far as to deny their own reality. In their prayers and addresses to the Deity, in their daily meditations and in their manifold spiritual exercises, we find neither fancy nor frenzy, neither abstract metaphysics nor lifeless theories, but a thrilling and direct intercourse with a burning reality. They did not dream, but they saw. They imagined not, but they handled the Great Spirit. To them God was as "a fruit held in the clutches of the hand;"-" karatala nyasta amalaka vat." They also spoke of Him as a shining light, so vivid was their perception of His real presence. The Spirit-God was not only a bright Reality to our forefathers, but He was also a Loving Personal Reality. Not only did they see Him with the eye of faith, but they also held Him in their hearts. In the Rig Veda the Lord is spoken of as a friend "whose friendship is sweet." He is "a friend, a father, and the most fatherly of fathers;"-"Sakha pita pitritama pitrinam." Such an expression, quite unusual, as "the most fatherly of fathers," cannot fail to strike even

the most prejudiced reader of the Hindu scriptures. as offering conclusive evidence of the affectionate relations in which India's ancient devotees stood to their God. Nay their conceptions rose higher still, and even recognised the Motherhood of God. The Deity is represented both as father and mother of mankind. "Twam hi na pita vaso twam mata." Let none then say that the ancient Hindus worshipped an abstract deity.

Let us now dismiss the past; let us take leave of ancient dispensations, and come down to modern times to see things as they are to-day. What is it that we behold around us? The Theists of modern India, we see, are worshipping this Great Spirit-God in their temples and also in their homes. They adore no visible divinity, but worship and serve the unseen and intangible Spirit of God. Strange it is, yet true, that for this they have been ridiculed and charged with atttempting an impossibility. Even educated men of the present day have not hesitated. to pronounce them thoughtless adorers of a metaphysical absurdity. The Infinite Spirit is said to be inconceivable and unknowable. Philosophy banishes the Infinite from the domain of thought, and places Him far above the reach of human thought and cognition. The very laws and conditions of thought preclude the possibility of a conception, however remote, of absolute and unconditioned Spirit. Tothink Him is to think Him away. God as a pure Spirit, whom neither the senses can apprehend nor the mind conceive, is altogether unknowable.

Such is the verdict of the so-called philosophy of modern times. Against this startling and pernicious doctrine every true Theist must declare his most emphatic protest. It is possible for man, in spite of the limitations of thought, to apprehend pure

Spirit. It is absurd to say that if we are to realise Divinity at all, we must clothe Him with flesh, and invest Him with the form and attributes of humanity, so as to bring Him within the reach of our thought and sympathy. It is equally absurd to contend that if we abandon the idea of worshipping God in a human or other visible shape, we must as an inevitable consequence rush into the regions of the absolutely unknowable. Experience has proved that it is not impossible for the finite soul to realise and worship the Infinite Soul, " in spirit and in truth." In the consciousness of the true devotee the Divine Spirit shines as a Reality infinitely more real than the small realities of the world around us. I speak not of possibilities only, but of veritable facts. The weak and credulous may bow before idols, the sceptical may complacently dismiss divinity from their minds as simply inconceivable, but the spiritually-minded have in all ages worshipped the Pure Spirit. Nay, they have even loved the unseen Spirit with the warmest and sweetest love. Reverently do I bow to the dictum of philosophy that the finite mind cannot even by its highest stretch conceive the Infinite Mind, and that He must always remain an incomprehensible though an admitted reality. Yet in the same breath, and with equal reverence, must I proclaim the fact that the higher spiritual nature of man can and does clearly perceive and passionately love a mere unseen Presence. Nay in such perception there is just as much vividness and as much fervour of personal attachment as an idolater manifests towards his visible idol or a hero-worshipper towards his hero. Do you not see this verified in the religious consciousness of modern India? The Theists, individually and as an organized community, have not only revived the

worship of the Spirit-God of the ancient Aryans, but are found to be possessed in a great measure of the sentiments and feelings of later idolatry. It is not to be denied that Puranic or idolatrous India has, with all her prejudices and superstitions, and her vast pantheon peopled with millions of divinities, contributed to throw upon the Spirit-God of Aryan India such charming colors as have made Him peculiarly dear to modern Theists. As we roll down the stream of time from ancient to modern India, we are indeed grieved to find how amidst successive changes higher and purer faith has gradually degenerated into debasing forms of idolatry and superstition, and how in consequence of the later corruptions of Hinduism the country has gone down century after century in a course of moral and spiritual decadence. And yet marvellously has God's Providence evolved light out of darkness, truth out of falsehood. Out of evil cometh good. Out of idolatry has been extracted the sweetness of Theism. It may seem strange, yet nevertheless it is true, that even the curse of idolatry has proved a blessing to us. To the myriad gods and goddesses of India, to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and all the legends of Hindu mythology we owe a debt of gratitude. It is these divinities, however unreal, that have called forth the varied affections of the Hindu mind. The worshippers of Rama and Krishna, whatever their errors, have worshipped their gods with hearts full of devotional feelings. The devoted Vaishnava lives in the midst of an overflow of deep sentiments. Personal feelings towards a visible and personal divinity, the warmest sentiments of gratitude, the sweetest feelings of love, filial tenderness and friendly communion abound in the heart of the Hindu idolater. And this exuberance of devotional

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