Contrasts in Social Progress (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. 231 and Rome claim the love of their worshippers? Did they dictate a law of universal love among men? Was this double law--one law of love in two tables, love to God and love to man--ever put forth, as a solvent of the problem of evil, by the Vedic philosophers, or dreamed of by Gautama? Did it enter the mind of the astute Confucius, or Zoroaster the seer? Was it made the foundation of a moral kingdom by Mohammed? This was the thought first made known to the world as a practical power--a moral obligation binding upon all men--in the writings of the Hebrew historians, their poets, their prophets of the old dispensation, and uttered with emphasis by the Son of Man and exemplified in His life; it was this which the Apostles carried to the pagan world, --the strange story of the Divine love to man and of man's answering love, and the idea of an unselfish love between all men as the sons of God. IV. RELATING TO MORAL EVIL. For another contrast between the ethical contents of the Christian and the non-Christian Books there is a worldwide difference in their ideas of the nature of sin, --the one relating to ritualistic error or neglect, and the other to one's moral attitude toward God and man. Through attention to priestly guidance in forms of worship, a Hindu need not be pure in heart, nor truthful towards one's neighbor, and may violate nearly every precept that falls under the Golden Rule,1 and yet he may be 1The laws of Manu forbid Brahmans to drink spirituous liquor, to kill a Brahman, or steal gold from a Brahman, to commit adultery in specified relations, or to associate with any one guilty of such crimes.--Monier-Williams, Hinduism, p. 64. It should, however, be stated that the theory of the Hindu Books is better than...