Our doctrine of salvation by grace alone, and not in any degree by man's merit, is often declared to be fatal to morality. This is often said in our own country, and we need not say what we advance in its confutation.
The doctrine of previous births has taken full possession of the Hindu mind, as accounting for the character and events of the present birth. This belief in transmigration has a very hurtful effect on the people, as it leads them, when suffering for their conduct, to attribute their sufferings to births of which they do not profess to have any remembrance, instead of blaming themselves for the course they had pursued. We have to show the baselessness, the unreasonableness, and the injurious tendency of this notion. The doctrine of a blind fate determining everything is widely held. The greatest criminals coolly assert it has been their fate to have done what they have done, and, of course, to suffer as they suffer. The moral nature of the people, though benumbed, is happily not destroyed, and to it we appeal against a notion which levels all moral distinctions.
[Sidenote: PANTHEISM AND HINDU PHILOSOPHY.]
Pantheism, it is well known, lies at the foundation of Hindu Polytheism. It may be indeed doubted if there has ever been a Polytheistic system apart from a Pantheistic element. The Hindus generally cannot work out the Pantheistic theory, as the Pundits do, but the most illiterate are familiar with its commonplaces, and are ready with their avowal. We often hear, "Is not God everywhere? Does He not pervade all? Is He not all? Is not all evolved from Him, as the spider's web is evolved from its body? Does not all emanate from Him, as the stream flows from the fountain and rays from the sun? Are we not all portions of Him? We may worship anything and everything if only we see God in it. There are differences in the sparks from the central fire, some far brighter than others. The gods are the brightest sparks, and therefore they are specially worthy of worship." In reply we have to insist on the difference between the Creator and the creature, between the Ruler and His subject. We are often told it is God that makes us speak and act, and we are puppets dancing as He draws the strings. In protest against this doctrine we appeal to the acknowledgment they themselves make of the essential distinction between right and wrong, the one to be done, the other to be shunned, and show that if their Pantheistic notion be accepted the distinction is obliterated, and the floodgate is open to the commission of all wickedness.