for His good pleasure."

How different is the picture presented to us by the Hindu Shastras of the
means of human redemption--a picture, however, consonant with the aims
which they have set before themselves to accomplish for man. The first and
all-present fact of this faith is the terrible loneliness and isolation of
man in the great struggle of life. His destiny is in his own hands, and he
must fight single-handed against a thousand odds in the awful battle for
emancipation.

_Karma_ is the word used to express this thought which has possessed the
Hindu mind from the earliest days to the present. This word may be
translated "works," and means the acts by which the soul determines its
own destiny. In Vedic times the all-powerful works were sacrifice and
ritual. In the Upanishads they are meditation and self-mortification.
Today they are ceremonial, with works of charity, self-renunciation or
religious mendicancy generally added.

In pre-Buddhistic days sacrifice abounded in Brahmanism; and it grew to
such proportions that the revolt headed by Gautama and incarnated in
Buddhism became universal. But vicariousness was largely wanting as an
element in, and as a cause of, their sacrifices. They were rather offered
with a view to nourish the gods and as a means of acquiring power. He who
sacrificed a hundred horses was said to gain thereby even larger power
than Indra himself possessed--a power which enabled him to dethrone this
god of the heavens. Such was the power said to inhere in sacrifice that
the gods themselves combined to prevent men from the practice lest they
should rise to larger power than themselves! With the triumph and
subsequent absorption of Buddhism into Brahmanism the latter abandoned its
sacrifices and accepted the Buddhistic emphasis upon _Karma_, and doomed
every soul to the tread-mill of its own destiny. To every human word, deed
or thought, however insignificant, there is fruit which must be eaten by
the soul.

It is claimed for this doctrine that it well emphasizes the conservation
of moral force. Christianity also conserves, to the last, moral force; not
however by insisting upon man bearing himself the whole burden, but by
enabling him to cast the burden upon the Lord who graciously offers to
bear the load of human guilt belonging to every soul.

Another word in India which is synonymous with large power and merit is
_Yoga_. It is inculcated in the _Yoga_ philosophy and is supposed to stand