ament?" More or
less indifferent to all religions, and failing to understand the real
principles on which they severally rest, they are ready to applaud a
challenge like that which we are considering, and to contrast it with
the alleged narrowness and intolerance of Christian Theism.

I have dwelt thus at length upon Mr. Chatterji's introduction, and have
illustrated it by references to similar specious claims of other faiths,
in order that I might bring into clearer view the main issue which this
book now presents to the American public. It is the softest, sweetest
voice yet given to that gospel of false charity which is the fashion of
our times. Emerson and others caught it from afar and discoursed to a
generation now mostly gone of the gentle maxims of Confucius, Krishna,
and Gautama. But now Krishna is among us in the person of his most
devout apostle, and a strange hand of fellowship is stretched out toward
us from the land of the Vedas.

It behooves us to inquire, first, into the pantheistic philosophy which
underlies these sayings, and to ask for their meaning as applied in real
life; and second, we shall need to know something of Krishna, and
whether he speaks as one having authority. It should be borne in mind
that pantheism sacrifices nothing whatever by embracing all religions,
since even false religions are a worship of Vishnu in their way, while
Christianity by its very nature would sacrifice everything. According to
pantheism all things that exist, and all events that transpire, are
expressions of the Divine will. The one only existent Being embraces all
causes and all effects, all truth and all falsehood. He is no more the
source of good than of evil. "I am immortality," says Krishna. "I am
also death." Man with all his thoughts and acts is but the shadow of
God, and moves as he is moved upon. Arjuna's divine counsellor says to
him: "The soul, existing from eternity, devoid of qualities,
imperishable, abiding in the body, yet supreme, acts not nor is by any
act polluted. He who perceives that actions are performed by Prakriti
alone, and that the soul is not an actor, sees the truth aright."

Now, if this reasoning be correct, it is not we that sin; not we that
worship; and in the last analysis all religions are alike; they are only
the varied expressions of the thought of God. As He manifests his power
in nature in a thousand forms, producing some objects that are beautiful
to the eye and others that ar