Chap. II.] CREED OF THE HINDOOS. bl
engaged in the unhallowed task of not only countenancing idolatry in its most ad. -
abominable form, but of propping it up when it was falling by its own weight. It is needless to examine the arguments, partly mercenary and partly Machia- vellian, employed to justify this alliance with idolatry, since the moral sense revolts against it, and public opinion, once blinded, lias become alive to its enormity, and extinguished it for ever.
The character of the gods and the kind of worship deemed acceptable to Fmiaamen them having been explained, it will now be necessary to examine the other pies of leading articles of the Hindoo creed, and thus obtain a key to the motives by vfJi^f°"* which those who profess it are influenced in their religious observances. Man never sinks so low as not to have some reliffion. The idea of the existence of a higher order of beings than himself is so natural that some have conceived it to be innate, and there is an easy transition from this idea to the conviction, that such beino^s, besides beino- cognizant of human affairs, exercise a direct and powerful influence over them. Hence the important question arises — According to what rule do they act in distributing their favours? or. By what course of conduct may these be most effectually secured ? The importance of this question is greatly increased by the consideration of a future state. When the body dies, the spirit which animated it is not extinguished. It only departs from the tabernacle in which it dwelt, or escapes from the prison-house in which it was confined, and has thereby, in all probability, been rendered more susceptible than ever of pleasure and pain. The belief that these are not dispensed indiscrimi- nately, but awarded according to desert, gives meaning, and is in fact the great incentive to religious observance. Some homage might indeed be paid to a higher nature from instinctive respect and veneration, without expectation of ulterior benefit, but formal and regular worship never would be performed by any one not persuaded that he might by means of it promote at once his present and his future welfare. All systems of religion, tlierefore, how widely soever they may differ in their particular features, must be based on certain fundamental beliefs — an over-rulnig providence belonging exclusively to one Su- preme Being, or ascribed by a foolish imagination to an indefinite series of so- called deities — a future state — and a distribution of rewards and punishments, according to some fixed rule of favour or supposed desert. In the Christian system each of these is exhibited in its most perfect form — one only God, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness — a future state, in which the destiny of every individual, the moment he quits the ]iresent life, is irrevocably fixed — and a distribution of happiness and misery, not indeed according to a desert of which human nature is incapable, but as the completion of a wondrous plan in which truth meets with mercy, and righteousness with peace. In all these respects Hindooism presents not a resemblance, but a hideous contrast. The nature of its gods has been seen. Turn now to its future state.
The great peculiarity of the Hindoo creed in regard to a future state is its Vol. II. 97
