XV. RELIGIOUS
FERMENT
It is now time to turn again to my experiences with
Christian friends.
Mr. Baker was getting anxious about my future. He took
me to the Wellington Convention. The Protestant
Christians organize such gatherings every few years for
religious enlightenment or, in other words,
self-purification. One may call this religious
restoration or revival. The Wellington Convention was of
this type. The chairman was the famous divine of the
place, the Rev. Andrew Murray. Mr. Baker had hoped that
the atmosphere of religious exaltation at the Convention,
and the enthusiasm and earnestness of the people
attending it, would inevitably lead me to embrace
Christianity.
But his final hope was the efficacy of prayer. He had
an abiding faith in prayer. It was his firm conviction
that God could not but listen to prayer fervently
offered. He would cite the instances of men like George
Muller of Bristol, who depended entirely on prayer even
for his temporal needs. I listened to his discourse on
the efficacy of prayer with unbiased attention, and
assured him that nothing could prevent me from embracing
Christianity, should I feel the call. I had no hesitation
in giving him this assurance, as I had long since taught
myself to follow the inner voice. I delighted in
submitting to it. To act against it would be difficult
and painful to me.
So we went to Wellington. Mr. Baker was hard put to it
in having 'a coloured man' like me for his companion. He
had to suffer inconveniences on many occasions entirely
on account of me. We had to break the journey on the way,
as one of the days happened to be a Sunday, and Mr. Baker
and his party would not travel on the sabbath. Though the
manager of the station hotel agreed to take me in after
much altercation, he absolutely refused to admit me to
the dining- room. Mr. Baker was not the man to give way
easily. He stood by the rights of the guests of a hotel.
But I could see his difficulty. At Wellington also I
stayed with Mr. Baker. In spite of his best efforts to
conceal the little inconveniences that he was put to, I
could see them all.
This Convention was an assemblage of devout
Christians. I was delighted at their faith. I met the
Rev. Murray. I saw that many were praying for me. I liked
some of their hymns, they were very sweet.
The Convention lasted for three days. I could
understand and appreciate the devoutness of those who
attended it. But I saw no reason for changing my belief
my religion. It was impossible for me to believe that I
could go to heaven or attain salvation only by becoming a
Christian. When I frankly said so to some of the good
Christian friends, they were shocked. But there was no
help for it.
My difficulties lay deeper. It was more than I could
believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and
that only he who believed in him would have everlasting
life. If God could have sons, all of us were His sons. If
Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were
like God and could be God Himself. My reason was not
ready to believe literally that Jesus by his death and by
his blood redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically
there might be some truth in it. Again, according to
Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other
living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction;
while I held a contrary belief. I could accept Jesus as a
martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher,
but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on
the Cross was a great example to the world, but that
there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue
in it my heart could not accept. The pious lives of
Christians did not give me anything that the lives of men
of other faiths had failed to give. I had seen in other
lives just the same reformation that I had heard of among
Christian principles. From the point of view of
sacrifice, it seemed to me that the Hindus greatly
surpassed the Christians. It was impossible for me to
regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest
of all religions.
I shared this mental churning with my Christian
friends whenever there was an opportunity, but their
answers could not satisfy me.
Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a
perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then
convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were
pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a
part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an
excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'etre
of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning
of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God?
If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the
Koran?
As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me,
even so were Musalman friends. Abdulla Sheth had kept on
inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always
something to say regarding its beauty.
I expressed my difficulties in a letter to
Raychandbhai. I also corresponded with other religious
authorities in India and received answers from them.
Raychandbhai's letter somewhat pacified me. He asked me
to be patient and to study Hinduism more deeply. One of
his sentences was to this effect: 'On a dispassionate
view of the question I am convinced that no other
religion has the subtle and profound thought of Hinduism,
its vision of the soul, or its charity.'
I purchased Sale's translation of the Koran and began
reading it. I also obtained other books on Islam. I
communicated with Christian friends in England. One of
them introduced me to Edward Maitland, with whom I opened
correspondence. He sent me The Perfect Way, a
book he had written in collaboration with Anna Kingsford.
The book was a repudiation of the current Christian
belief. He also sent me another book, The New
Interpretation of the Bible. I liked both. They
seemed to support Hinduism. Tolstoy's The Kingdom of
God is Within You overwhelmed me. It left an abiding
impression on me. Before the independent thinking,
profound morality, and the truthfulness of this book, all
the books given me by Mr. Coates seemed to pale into
insignificance.
My studies thus carried me in a direction unthought of
by the Christian friends. My correspondence with Edward
Maitland was fairly prolonged, and that with Raychandbhai
continued until his death. I read some of the books he
sent me. These included Panchikaran, Maniratnamala,
Mumukshu Prakaran of Yogavasishtha, Haribhadra Suri's
Shaddarshana Samuchchaya and others.
Though I took a path my Christian friends had not
intended for me, I have remained for indebted to them for
the religious quest that they awakened in me. I shall
always cherish the memory of their contact. The years
that followed had more, not less, of such sweet and
sacred contacts in store for me.
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