when
they defend their ancestral religion, they really defend not the
indigenous product of India, such as is taught by the Hindu pandit and
believed by the mass of the people, but Hinduism Christianized and
clothed in the garb of the West and spoken in the accents of a
Christian.

Hindu Swamis, who have been educated in Christian mission schools, and
have spent a few years in the far West, surrounded by a Christian
atmosphere, imbibing Christian sentiments, and unconsciously adopting
the Christian viewpoint, return to India upon a wave of popular
excitement and give public addresses and receive the plaudits of their
grateful countrymen. But what is it that such men as Vivekananda and
Abhedananda, and all the rest of the _Ananda_ tribe, teach upon their
return to India? It is certainly not an orthodox Hinduism, nor is it
the pure philosophy of the East. It is rather a strange compound in
which Christianity figures as prominently as does Hinduism, and,
perhaps, more conspicuously. What was the caste system recently
enunciated by Abhedananda in Madras? It is certainly not a thing
known in India by that name. And I have no doubt that his whole
audience smiled when he presented his conception of a caste system so
foreign to all Hindu ideas and practice. It is just so with his
Vedantism, and with his interpretation of all the religious teachings
of this land. They are now construed in terms foreign to the rishi and
to the pandit. But (and this the point I wish to emphasize) these
interpretations meet increasingly with the applause and acceptance of
educated Hindu audiences. In other words, a Christian colouring and
glamour thrown over Hinduism is adding to its popularity in the land.

In the general way of looking at religious things, and especially of
apprehending religious thought, there is to-day almost as wide a gulf
between the educated and cultured Hindu, on the one hand, and the
authorized religious instructors of India, on the other, as there is
between the same learned man of the East and the thoughtful man of the
West.

Or, if we look at the multiplying institutions of the country, which
truly represent the thoughts and sentiments of the leading people of
India, we can easily see that they are imbued with non-Hindu, if not
anti-Hindu, ideas and motives. The various Somajes and other religious
movements, which mean so much in the life of India to-day, are more or
less an endeavour to interpret life from a non-Hi