of worship.... But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the omnipresence
of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of an
image any of his glorious manifestations, ought we to be charged with
identifying them with the matter of the image, whilst during those
moments of sincere and fervent devotion, we do not even think of
matter? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated
friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with
sentiments of love and reverence; if we fancy him present in the
picture, still looking upon us with his wonted tenderness and
affection, and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should
we be charged with offering the grossest insult to him--that of
fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper?... We
really lament the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who confound
our representative worship with the Phenician, Grecian, or Roman
idolatry as represented by European writers, and then charge us with
polytheism in the teeth of thousands of texts in the Pura_n_as
declaring in clear and unmistakable terms that there is but one God
who manifests Himself as Brahma, Vish_n_u, and Rudra (Siva), in His
functions of creation, preservation, and destruction."[3]

[Footnote 3: The modern pandit's reply to the missionary who accuses
him of polytheism is: "O, these are only various manifestations of the
one God; the same as, though the sun be one in the heavens, yet he
appears in multi-form reflections upon the lake. The various sects are
only different entrances to the one city." See W. W. Hunter, _Annals
of Rural Bengal_, p. 116.]

In support of these statements, this eloquent advocate quotes numerous
passages from the sacred literature of the Brahmans, and he sums up
his view of the three manifestations of the Deity in the words of
their great poet Kalidasa, as translated by Mr. Griffith:--

"In those Three Persons the One God was shown:
Each First in place, each Last,--not one alone;
Of Siva, Vish_n_u, Brahma, each may be
First, second, third, among the Blessed Three."

If such contradictory views can be held and defended with regard to
religious systems still prevalent amongst us, where we can
cross-examine living witnesses, and appeal to chapter and verse in
their sacred writings, what must the difficulty be when we have to
deal with the religions of the past? I do not wish to disguise these
difficulties which are inh