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former-and he is able slowly but surely to let in light enter where before it had no chance. Am I wrong? Let certain movements of the day that I shall not name bear testimony. But "the greatest of social changes begin in the creation of individual faith." Rao Saheb Mandlik was often accustomed to warn reformers against what he called "the rocks ahead"- and a warning of that kind even the best of reformers may at times need, for the reforming spirit, which is always allied to enthusiasm, is apt to so overwhelm the man animated by it as to make him rush at full speed. But in India, where the principle of conservatism is born with us and deep-rooted, the warning seems to me to be a little too superfluous, if it is not coupled at the same time with words of hope and encouragement. It was natural for Rao Saheb Mandlik to fear the disturbance of our social equilibrium "" by new theories" and "novel principles. Even Piato and Aristotle, with all their wisdom and genius, busied themselves with such questions as "to how to avoid revolution," and how to maintain a stable equilibrium, while proposing changes in the body, politic and social. They were timorous and nervous, where "the Galilean peasant." whose education was nil and whose philosophy simple, coming ages after them, tackled the problem of social improvement more boldly-and succeeded. And to him we owe the humanising principles which dominate the civilization of the modern times. "Not to break off our moorings," "not to break away from the past," "to be cautious and slow," are all fine phrases and good advice, so far as they go. But human nature is so full and fond of the past, at least in India, so inert and supine, that there is no danger of any reformer running headlong and revolu. tionising society. Rather, it may and must do good to have advice offered the other way-it is so much needed where a Himalaya of superstition has to be moved. And may not hear the voices of our prophets, not to speak of reformers in other ages and of other countries, be invoked in support of the plea that he alone promotes the cause of true reform who loves it and lives for it, and that faith in the motion of masses and Shastris unaided by individual examples, is a broken reed-"prudent" it may be but perilous? Did they wait to preach their gospel till Gurus and Shastris had made it all smooth for them, and did they busy themselves with thoughts such as make cowards of us when we talk of breaking away from the past? The past is too strong in the present, and it has tre

mendous energy to take care of itself; what is wanted is force to mould it and that can come from "reform within. And reform from within" is impossible, so long as enlightened and educated individuals will sit still and in the hope that something may turn up-and that they will then help in the regeneration of their kind. Persecution there will be, and they must be prepared for it, for we have it from John Stuart Mill that times of weak conviction and decorous hypocrisy are less favourable to unpopular truth than times of persecution. To have an opponent, therefore, of Rao Saheb Mandlik's stamp must help and does help rather than retard the cause of social reform. I for one will not quarrel with his school if, it will have genuineness of convictions like his, and stumble on such phrases as " reform from within "-for verily they are instructing and inspiring.

III.

HINDOO PROTESTANTISM.

"REFORM, NOT REVIVAL."

It was the summer of 1894. 1 was on my way to Lonavla from Nasik, and had to halt at the Kalyan station for some hours. Having nothing to do but to while away my time, I walked to and fro on the station platform for some time and then stood near the shade of a tree to enjoy the cool breeze that was blowing. I found there two poorly clad and simple-looking men, one a Mahomedan and the other a Maratha, both sitting and talking of God and man. The Mahomedan was reciting the songs of Kabir, the Maratha was reciting the songs of Takaram and Namdev, and each seemed to enter fully into the devotional spirit of those two saints. The recitations were intermixed with conversation between the two, and I could not help feeling edified but at the same time humbled when I heard these two illiterate menfor such they seemed-say to each other that true devotion was at a discount in these days, that religion had become a matter of formality, and, instead of making both the Hindoo and the Mahomedan feel that they were children of the same God, it had degenerated into schis:ns. On the lips of both was the word bhakti or devotion, and uneducated as they were--poor mean things, as we are apt to say--they struck me from their one hour's conver

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sation, which I quietly watched and heard, as the disciples of the Bhakti School--i. e., of a class of Indian saints whom Mr. Justice Ranade described, in a lecture delivered at the Prarthana Samaj two years ago, as "the preachers and prophets of Hindoo Protestantism." I approached the two men, and discovered, if my recollection is right, that the Mahomedan was a sweeper and the Maratha a porter--both employed at the railway station at KalSuch sights are by no means rare in India, and it is one of the most striking features of the country that caste-ridden as the people are, even amongst the most degraded of Shudras, who have been known as Mahars, you come across men who are remarkable for their spiritual insight, and elate you as you hear them by their simple and soul stirring way of reciting the songs and recounting the doings of some of the best and greatest of our saints. One such Mahar I remember to have met a few years ago at Khandalla, and in the course of the Kirtan he performed, appealing to the saints of the Bhakti School, he said:"O ye sants," i. e., saints, "when even the Vedas and the Brahmins deserted and discarded us, Mabars, as the most degraded of human beings, ye of the Bhakti School came to our rescue and have left us a ray of hope."

I am led into recounting here these two reminiscences, trifling as they may seem, because they serve to remind one that the Hindoo, like the Jew of the Old Testament, has had a succession of prophets to awaken his conscience and denounce his decay when he fell into the ways of false worship and superstition, and that those prophets have left us a rich legacy, if we but have the sense to profit from it. They also bring to one's mind the thought that there is the seel of true religion and piety-material enough, ready to hand, for an honest worker to mould, but, as of old, though "the harvest is plenteous, the workers are few." And is it too much to maintain that this question of religious reform is at the bottom of all questions, and that all our efforts in other directions for the improvement of the people must prove like trying "to draw nectar in a sieve" unless they are supplemented by an earnest and steady endeavour to reform the spiritual notions of the people? In his latest work on "Jewish Religious Life after the Exile," the Rev. Dr. T. K. Cheyne makes the sensible observation that "religious reform is a necessary condition of social progress," and points out that, as Christianity, the religion of the people of Europe and

America, is the offshoot of the religion of the Jews, it is necessary for them to acquaint themselves thoroughly with the thoughts, the aspirations, and the spiritual temper, which animated "essential Judaism in the old times. Equally is it true to say of our people that while their social progress can but come through their religious reform, their religious reform must come from their own "essential" past. Hence the necessity of teaching them what their own prophets and saints have said and preached and of trying to inspire them with the ideals of holiness, for the realisation of which those prophets and saints lived and laboured hard. "Nothing," said Goethe, "is good for a people unless it spring up from its own. kernel."

It is this national mission which inspired the teachings and animated the actions of the two most prominent of our religious reformers of the present century-Raja Rammohan Roy and the late Pandit Dayanand Saraswati; and it is that ideal which two followers of the former-Maharshi Debendro Nath Tagore and Keshub Chunder Sen-earnestly strove to realize by putting the Brahmo Samaj on an organised basis. The Brahmo Samaj, with which Raja Rammohan Roy's name is identified, and the Arya Samaj which looks upon Pandit Dayanand Saraswati as its leader, have a few radical points of difference, but, after all, an impartial observer cannot but be struck by the fact that of late the tendency of each has been to work out its programme in its own way on national lines. The Arya Samaj discards idolatry and preaches monotheism, relying upon the Vedas as the revelation of God. It thinks that in the ancient times it was not the Jews alone, who were "the chosen" of God, but the Hindoos too had a special dispensation of the Deity. Raja Rammohan Roy, too, strove hard in his time to prove both in his "Appeal to the Christian public" and in his "Abridgement of the Vedant" that he had "forsaken idolatry for the worship of the true and eternal God," because the Upanishads affirmed that "One Unknown True Being is the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the Universe, and with great consistency inculcate the unity of God; instructing men, at the same time, in the pure mode of adoring Him in spirit." He did not, indeed, believe in the Vedas as the revelation of God. But the aim of his life was to appeal to the good sense of his countrymen by asking them to look into their Scriptures, "to examine their purport, without neglecting the proper and moderate use of reason;

an to attend strictly to their directions by the rational performance of their duty to their Creator and to their fellow creatures."

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This spirit of "Hindoo Protestantism" is now slowly and silently working among us, and whether one attends the weekly services at the Prarthana Samaj or the Arya Samaj, one is struck by the endeavours of the leading preachers of each to emphasise the teachings of the Upanishads and of Hindoo saints, and to recall their countrymen to the ancient principles of their "ancient ways." Dr. Bhandarkar preaching in the Prarthana Samaj of Poona and Mr. Justice Ranade preaching in that of Bombay have steadily kept this national ideal of their religious mission in view and their weekly sermons turn upon texts chosen, either from the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita or from the abhangs or songs of the great Maratha saint, Tukaram. It was the same spirit which actuated him whom Mr Justice Ranade, speaking with all the reverence due to the memory of a most beloved friend, described as our Political Rishi " in his lecture on "the Telang School." The late Mr. Narayan Mahadev Parmanand was more like a Rishi than any among us. He was one of the most charming of men and quietly, silently, with a heart entirely devoted to God, did he work for the good of his country—and to him our Bhandarkars Ranades, Telangs, and Nulkars looked up for guidance, inspiration, and advice. He was a model man-so saintly that to know him was to love him and feel blessed. In one of his pamphlets he has said of the national character of the religious mission of Rammohan Roy's Church :-" Several sects founded long before his time were more or less on similar principles, such as the Sikhs in the Punjab, Vaishnavas the followers of Chaitanya) in Bengal, and their offshoot, the Bhaktas of Maharashtra and the Kabirpanthis of Central India and Guzerat." The late Dr Atmaram, too, was inspired by that national ideal, as also the late Rao Bahadur Bholanath Sarabhai in Guzerat; and to the same we owe the saints of SindHiranand and Navalari, two brothers, whose piety and pure ways of living, and whose self-sacrificing examples have made their names household words among the Sindhis, and earned for them deservedly the title of sadhus. But these "preachers of Hindoo Protestantism" are not so wedded to the Hindoo Scriptures and the prophets of the Bhakti School as to rest their faith on them exclusively, in a spirit of blind patriotism. The Brahma Sabha, established in 1830 by Rammohan Roy, had, indeed, made the