206 



the supreme Brahma, the supreme Prajapati, the one Spirit or 

 Individuality, the one Almighty, the one Lord, of Vedic 

 Brahmanism, vestiges of a once purer faith and a truer 

 worship ? Certainly in reference to the theory of the evolu- 

 tionists, there seems to be a higher differentiation in these 

 teachings of the Vedic era, the one Infinite, Self-existent, 

 Spirit, Creator, the Source and End of being, than in the one 

 mere " Energy " of the present race of agnostics ; just as the 

 tree with stem, branches, leaves, fruit, is more highly differ- 

 entiated than a mere pole. And none of these ideas of the 

 deity can be charged with anthropomorphism. The theory of 

 differentiation in the science of religion has, therefore, a 

 somewhat difficult matter to explain, when investigating the 

 religious beliefs of the Brahmans of ages long past. More- 

 over, Dr. Oldenberg has told us that, long before this 

 discovery of the one Atman, the sacrificial fire was every- 

 where present, as the great symbol of Aryan prosperity. 

 They had sacrificed even to those " old gods,^^ whom they had 

 forgotten. So sovereign was the sacrificial system, that " the 

 king,* whom the Brahmans anoint to rule over their people, 

 is not their king ; the priest, at the coronation, when he 

 presents the ruler to his subjects, says, ' This is your king, 

 O people ; the king over us Brahmans is Soma.'' '^ Whence, 

 then, originated this idea of sacrifice ? And what is that Soma 

 libation again, but a vestige of the far past, the Hindu 

 remembrance of the sacrificial cup, which their forefathers in 

 the North had filled with the juice of the grape ? Did man 

 invent the priest, the altar, the sacrifice, the libation ? It is 

 impossible. We can only read the truth of this in the light of 

 the Mosaic dispensation. t 



17. Allow me to dwell, in a few hurried words, on the 

 evidences of a primeval revelation from God. First, as to 

 ritual worship. I will take only one example. The Hindu 

 temple is on the same plan as the tabernacle in the Wilderness 

 and Solomon^s Temple at Jerusalem, the fane consisting of 

 two rooms, the inner one for the idol, the outer one for the 

 priests^ offices, and usually standing in a court of greater 

 or less dimensions. Whence can the Hindus have derived 

 this plan ? It is scarcely possible that they can have borrowed 

 this particular design from the Jews. I had long ago sus- 

 pected that this also is a vestige of a ritual worship antecedent 



* Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 14. 



f See this subject further discussed by me in Pulpit Commentary on 

 Leviticus, Introduction on Sacrifice. 



