Bhakti, then, is simply the designation for fervour in worship or in presence of the Deity, as it appears in Hinduism. For fervour is not peculiar to any religion, even ecstatic fervour. We see it among the Jews in King David's dancing before the ark of the Lord, and we see it in the whirling of the dervishes of Cairo, despite Mahomedans' overawing idea of God. May we not say that the singing in Christian worship recognises the same religious instinct, and the necessity to permit the exercise of it. Many of the psalms, we feel we must chant or sing; reading is too cold for them--the 148th Psalm for example, "Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights: praise ye Him, sun and moon," and so on.
[Sidenote: Bhakti a natural channel for religious feeling, now being reconsecrated.]
We pass over the extravagances and gross depths to which bhakti, devotion or faith or love, may degenerate in the excitement of religious festivals--_corruptio optimi pessimum_. Even, strange to say, we find the grossness of bhakti also deliberately embodied in figures of wood and stone. Passing that over, we repeat that in bhakti or devotion to a personal God, or even only ecstatic extravagant devotion to a saint or religious hero semi-deified, we have a natural channel for the religious feeling of Indians, a channel that in these days is wearing deep. I speak of the middle classes, not of the ignorant masses, and my point is that the middle classes and the new religious organisations including the Indian Church are reconsecrating bhakti. Here is a portion of a bhakti hymn of one of the sections of the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j:
"The gods dance, chanting the name of Hari; Dances my Gouranga in the midst of the choral band; The eyes full of tears, Oh! how beautiful! Jesus dances, Paul dances, dances Sakya Muni."
Between singing the song and acting it while singing, the distance in India is little. The explanation of a recent Hindu devotee, Ramkrishna Paramhansa, is: "A true devotee, who has drunk deep of divine Love, is like a veritable drunkard, and as such cannot always observe the rules of propriety."[131] Manifestations of bhakti we would soon have in the Indian Christian Church were the cold moderating influence of Westerns lessened; and as the Church increases and becomes indigenous, we must welcome bhakti in measure. Every religious procession will lead to manifestations of bhakti. In the Church of Scotland Magazine, _Life and Work_, for November 1904, we are told of a convert at Calcutta: "She kept speaking and singing of Jesus.... She appeared to the Hindu family to be a Christ-intoxicated woman." Again, in the _Indian Standard_ for October 1905, we read of a religious revival among the Christians of the hills in Assam, where the Welsh missionaries work. We may contrast the concomitants of the revival with those attending the late revival even among the fervid Welsh. At one meeting, we are told, "the fervour rose at times to boiling heat, and scores of men were almost beside themselves with spiritual ecstasy. We never witnessed such scenes; scores of people literally danced, while large numbers who did not dance waved their arms in the air, keeping time, as they sang some of our magnificent Khassie hymns."