ments of glory in the incarnation of Christ--His
spotless character and His Cross and death--do not ordinarily appeal
to the inhabitants of this land as in any sense necessary or
important.

III

_Ideals of Life_

From the above considerations it will be natural to conclude that the
ideals of life entertained by the East and West are far removed. The
conflict of these ideals is the primary cause of the many strange
religious and social movements which to-day send their ramifications
into every town and hamlet of this land; and it creates the mighty
revolution now at work in India.

Consider first the religious ideals which dominate this land and the
"Far West." Hinduism has exalted asceticism as the highest type of
life and the best method of holy attainment. From time immemorial the
religious mendicant, with his ideals of self-renunciation and ascetic
practices, has found universal admiration among this people, and his
motives and methods stand as the most highly approved in all the
annals of this religion.

It is true that this was universally exalted above all other forms of
life among Christians also at one time, as it continues to be among,
perhaps, the majority to-day. And is not the Cross, which is the
emblem of self-renunciation and self-effacement, the motive power of
our faith, as it is also the embodied ideal of our Life? True; but
there is this marked difference between the two faiths. In
Christianity the Cross is only a means. The Cross of self-effacement
is the pathway of Christ and of the Christian to the crown of
self-realization. We despise the lower good in order that we may
attain unto the higher.

In Hinduism, the rigours of asceticism are, indeed, sometimes a means
to an end; but that end is not character or any spiritual achievement,
but power with the gods. Nearly all the notable instances of religious
austerities and self-torture practised by _yogis_, and recorded in
Hindu legend and history, were undertaken for the purpose of
accumulating thereby a great store of merit through which power might
be acquired over men or gods. Thus many an ascetic is said to have so
subdued and afflicted his body that nearly the whole Hindu pantheon
trembled in the presence of the power thus acquired by him.

But when the Hindu ascetic has not this object in self-renunciation,
his austerities are an end in themselves. He renounces all--not simply
the mean things of life, but also the noblest ambitions a