THE ARYA SAMAJ. 



107 



General KoBixsox. — It is a long time since I was in India ; but 

 I am afraid that the Brahm Samaj is not advancing. I do not 

 know that I ought to say " afraid," for it has missed its mark. 

 Eound Calcutta and the lower part of Bengal is where you find 

 the Brahm Samaj. As the last speaker said, it seemed to 

 approach the truth, and it very nearly did so, and it got all its 

 teaching from Jesus Christ. It accepts our Saviour as the 

 Great Teacher, and it seemed very nearly as if its leader was 

 going to accept Jesus Christ altogether as the Son of God ; but 

 just at last he failed. It takes the moral code of the New 

 Testament as its code of morals, and it is hoped that through the 

 teaching of our missionaries some of the Brahm Samaj may be 

 led to accept Christianity, but at present, as I say, it has just 

 missed its mark. So it has not advanced. I do not think it is 

 dying out altogether, but it hangs about the neighbourhood of 

 Calcutta and Bengal. 



The Chairman. — I am afraid my knowledge of India has led 

 me first to this conclusion — that the Brahm Samaj, the Arya 

 Samaj, and such-like doctrines, are all of them struggles against 

 the advance of light and truth. I do not believe there is much 

 vitality in any of them as far as I have been able to see ; but 

 it is a curious thing how the human mind will attach itself to 

 what pleases it and will bring itself to believe it. What they 

 make up their minds to believe (and let us take care that it is 

 not the same, in some little measure with ourselves) they adhere 

 to somehow. I think the root and offspring of them all has 

 been the advance of western science and western religion, and a 

 struggle against that advance. " Let us stop it and invent 

 something else. "We will take the emancipation of women, in 

 theory at all events, but not much in practice. These westerns 

 come and press these ideas on us ; but we will hold tight to 

 Hinduism somehow," and they thus struggle against the light and 

 knowledge of the voice of God and His Christ. As far as they 

 can they will struggle against all advance of western knowledge 

 and light, Avhich is a great misfortune. 



The Meeting then adjourned. 



