These Philosophers Dwell On The Inevitability
And Unchangeableness Of Laws, On The Power Of Temperament And
Constitution, The Three Goon Or Qualities, And The Circumstances
Of Birth And Affinity.
The end is an immense consolation;
eternal absorption in Brahma.
Their speculations never venture
beyond their own table-lands, though they are high and vast as
they. Buoyancy, freedom, flexibility, variety, possibility,
which also are qualities of the Unnamed, they deal not with. The
undeserved reward is to be earned by an everlasting moral
drudgery; the incalculable promise of the morrow is, as it were,
weighed. And who will say that their conservatism has not been
effectual? "Assuredly," says a French translator, speaking of
the antiquity and durability of the Chinese and Indian nations,
and of the wisdom of their legislators, "there are there some
vestiges of the eternal laws which govern the world."
Christianity, on the other hand, is humane, practical, and, in a
large sense, radical. So many years and ages of the gods those
Eastern sages sat contemplating Brahm, uttering in silence the
mystic "Om," being absorbed into the essence of the Supreme
Being, never going out of themselves, but subsiding farther and
deeper within; so infinitely wise, yet infinitely stagnant;
until, at last, in that same Asia, but in the western part of it,
appeared a youth, wholly unforetold by them, - not being absorbed
into Brahm, but bringing Brahm down to earth and to mankind; in
whom Brahm had awaked from his long sleep, and exerted himself,
and the day began, - a new avatar.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 141 of 422
Words from 38808 to 39064
of 116321
