or Chaitanya. This is in accord with the spirit of Hinduism--namely, the
fluidity of doctrine, and the free choice of guru or religious teacher,
as set forth in a previous chapter--although it is still an advanced
position for a Hindu to take up publicly.

[Sidenote: Eccentric manifestations of the power of Christ's
personality.]

Could we observe the course of evolution down which a species of animals
or plants has come from some remote ancestry to their present form, with
what interest would we note the specific characteristics gathering
strength, as from generation to generation they prove their "fitness to
survive"! The whole onward career of the evolving species would seem to
have been aimed at the latest form in which we find it. Yet quite as
wonderful phenomena as the species that has survived are the many
variations of the species that have presented themselves, but have not
proved fit to survive. One species only survives for hundreds of
would-be collaterals that are extinct. The religious evolution that we
have been observing is the growing power of Christ's personality in New
India; and now, as further testimony to its power, a number of
collateral movements, similarly inspired yet eccentric and hardly likely
to endure, attract our attention. In these eccentric movements the power
of Christ's personality is manifest, and yet it appears amid
circumstances so peculiar that the phenomena in themselves are
grotesque.

[Sidenote: The Punjab--two have set themselves up as Christ come again.]

[Sidenote: Hakim Singh.]

[Sidenote: Mirz[=a] Ghol[=a]m Ahmad.]

Three of these strange movements let us look at as new evidence of the
power of Christ's personality in India. All three occur in still another
province than those named, the Punjab, a province _sui generis_ in many
ways. Within a generation past, at least two men have arisen, either
claiming to be Christ Himself come again, or a Messiah superior to Him.
A third received a vision of "Jesus God," and proclaimed Him, wherever
he went, as an object of worship. Of the first of the three leaders, Sir
Alfred Lyall tells us, one Hakim Singh, "who listened to missionaries
until he not only accepted the whole Christian dogma, but conceived
himself to be the second embodiment [of Christ], and proclaimed himself
as such and summoned the missionaries to acknowledge him." It sounds
much like blasphemy, or mere lunacy; but in India one learns not to be
shocked at what i