without distinction as
idolaters, contrasting them with the Mahomedans of India. In the
_Calcutta Gazette_ of 1816, Raja Rammohan Roy, the learned opponent of
Hindu idolatry, the Erasmus of the new era, is called the _discoverer_
of theism in the sacred books of the Hindus. Rammohan Roy himself
disclaimed the title, but writing in 1817, he speaks of "the system of
idolatry into which Hindus are now completely sunk."[71] Many learned
brahmans, he says in the same pamphlet, are perfectly aware of the
absurdity of idol worship, indicating that the knowledge belonged only
to the scholars. His own object, he said, was to declare _the unity_ of
God as the real thought of the Hindu Scriptures. Across India, on the
Bombay side, we find clear evidence of the state of opinion among the
middle class in 1830, from the report of a public debate on the
Christian and Hindu religions. The antagonists were, on the one side,
the Scottish missionary Dr. John Wilson and others, and on the other
side two leading officials of the highest Government Appellate Court,
men who would now rank as eminent representatives of the educated class.
One of these demanded proof that there was only one God.[72]

[Sidenote: The beginning of the nineteenth century.]

[Sidenote: Monotheistic belief a broadening wedge between pantheism and
polytheism.]

Returning to Bengal, it would seem from Rammohan Roy's evidence that in
1820 the standpoint of the learned at that time was exactly what we have
called the standpoint of an intelligent individual among the masses
to-day, namely, a plea that the multitude of gods were agents of the one
Supreme God. "Debased and despicable," he writes, "as is the belief of
the Hindus in three hundred and thirty millions of gods, they (the
learned) pretend to reconcile this persuasion with the doctrine of the
unity of God, alleging that the three hundred and thirty millions of
gods are subordinate agents assuming various offices and preserving the
harmony of the universe under one Godhead, as innumerable rays issue
from one sun."[73] Turning to testimony of a different kind, we find
Macaulay speaking about the polytheistic idolatry he knew between 1834
and 1838. "The great majority of the population," he writes, "consists
of idolaters." Macaulay's belief was that idolatry would not survive
many years of English education, and we shall now take note how in the
century the sphere of idolatry and polytheism has been limited. At th