Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/220

192 INTRODUCTION TO PARLIAMENT PAPERS. speculation, but which are none the less genuine and worthy of respectful study when found among the rudest races. It is a most happy and hopeful fact that the pursuit of these new lines of study is led in many instances by men of earnest and intelligent Christian faith. Among the foremost, Sir Monier Monier-Williams, an earnest believer in the gospel of Christ as the one hope of the world, has declared his view of the attitude which English Christianity ought to take toward the peoples and faiths of India. The following pages contain indications that many of the most devoted and suc- cessful of Christian missionaries 'are so far from any timorous or contemptuous shrinking from this comparative study that they are themselves, as well they may be, among the most fruitful contributors to it. A better statement of the duty enjoined upon Christians in the New Testament, in this matter, can hardly be found than that of Sir Monier-Williams in the Preface to his " Indian Wisdom," pp. xxxii-v. : " It appears to me high time that all thoughtful Christians should recon- sider their position, and — to use the phraseology of our modern physicists — readjust themselves to their altered environments. The sacred books of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Islam, are now at length becoming accessible to all and Christians can no longer neglect the duty of studying their contents. All the inhabitants of the world are being rapidly drawn together : Paul's grand saying — that God has made all nations of men of one blood — is being brought home to us more forcibly every day. Surely, then, we are bound to follow the example of Paul, who, speaking to the Gentiles, instead of denouncing them as 'heathen,' appealed to them as 'very God-fearing' and even quoted a passage from one of their own poets in support of a Chris- tian truth ; and who directed Christians not to shut their eyes to anything true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, wherever it might be found, and exhorted them, that if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, they were to think on these things. Surely it is time we ceased to speak and act as if truth among Gentiles and truth among Christians were two wholly different things. Surely we ought to acknowledge and accept with gratitude whatever is true and noble in the Hindu character, or Hindu writings, while we reflect with shame on our own shortcomings under far greater advantages. Nor ought we to forget the words of Peter, when we label Brahmans, Buddhists, Parsis, Muslims, and Fetish worshipers with the common label heathen. Peter, when addressing Gentiles, assured them that