but will also grip the country in such a way as the western
type of our faith has not yet been able to do, and _seems_ incapable
of doing.

IV

The Arya Somaj is a movement somewhat kindred to the Brahmo Somaj, in
so far as it is a definite protest against modern Hinduism and is
theistic in its teaching. The Theism of this Somaj, however, is quite
different in character from that of the Brahmos.

Dayanand Saraswati was a Brahman, born in the Gujarati country about
1825. He developed into a man of keen intellect and of deep
convictions. He also studied the Christian Scriptures and was
slightly versed in the Hindu Shastras. He became dissatisfied with
the Pantheism of his mother faith; the caste system grated upon his
nerves, and the idolatry and the superstitions of the land, and
especially the gross immorality of the people, roused him to deep
thought and activity. He appealed to the Pandits, but found no
sympathy or help from them. He found his Theism in the Vedas
themselves, and ever after proclaimed, with great vehemence, that the
God of the Vedas was one and was a personal God; and he found an easy
way of interpreting those ancient books in harmony with his
convictions!

Jesus Christ did not appeal to him in the least. Indeed, he indulges
in very cheap and gross criticism of the life of our Lord. His
attitude toward Christianity was not at all kindly; indeed, the
movement, up to the present, has been distinguished for nothing more
than its hostility to the Christian religion. Nevertheless, it is
doubtless true that some of the best ideas that Dayanand possessed
were gleaned from the Bible; and the Arya Somaj has learned and
inculcates some of the important lessons of our faith.

When Dayanand found no encouragement in his appeal to the Pandits, he
turned ultimately to the people and founded, in 1875, the Arya Somaj
at Bombay. And from the first the movement has been a popular one,
addressing itself to the masses and seeking to bring them over to its
way of thinking and living. In this it has been, as we have seen,
entirely removed from the Brahmo Somaj, which has been too content to
remain a religion of the classes. Like the other movement, however, it
has been largely local in its spread and influence. Of its one hundred
thousand members at the present time, more than 70 per cent are in the
United Provinces, and nearly all the remainder are in the Panjaub.

Moreover, it has recently gathered its recruits