l or
Catholic] Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j," set forth in the organ of the body, we
quote a paragraph 8: "God rewards virtue and punishes sin, but that
punishment is for our good and cannot last to eternity." From a
publication by a third section of the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, the party of
Keshub Chunder Sen, we quote: "Every sinner must suffer the consequences
of his own sins, sooner or later, in this world or in the next; for the
moral law is unchangeable and God's justice irreversible. His mercy also
must have its way. As the just king, He visits the soul with _adequate
agonies_, and when the sinner after being thus chastised mournfully
prays, He as the merciful Father delivers and accepts him and becomes
reconciled to him. Such reconciliation is the only true atonement."[127]
Even in the last quoted, the expression "adequate agonies" shows its
standpoint regarding salvation from sin to be salvation by repentance,
and not the standpoint of St. Paul, "I live, and yet no longer I, but
Christ liveth in me."

CHAPTER XX

THE IDEA OF SALVATION

"The slender sound
As from a distance beyond distance grew,
Coming upon me--O never harp nor horn
Was like that music as it came; and then
Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam,
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail."

TENNYSON.

[Sidenote: Hinduism superseded Buddhism because it offered salvation,
not extinction.]

Salvation does mean something to every class. The huge fabric of
Brahmanism does not continue to exist without ministering to some
wide-felt need of the masses. It was in obedience to some inward demand,
however perverted, that children were cast into the Ganges at Saugor,
that human sacrifices were offered and self-tortures like hook-swinging
were endured. These have been put down by British authority, but there
still remain many austerities and bloody sacrifices and strange devices
to satisfy the clamant demand of our souls. Even may we not say that,
along with other reasons for the disappearance of Buddhism from India,
some response more satisfying to the human need must have been offered
by the rival system of Hinduism. Hinduism has deities and avatars;
Buddhism had none. Two of the most interesting spots in India, the most
sacred in the world to Buddhists, are Budh-gaya, where under the bo tree
Buddha attained to enlightenment, and S[=a]rn[=a]th, where he began his
preaching. Yet the worship at neither place to-day is Buddhist. At