Auld lang syne. Second series : $b My Indian friendsMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
History
Auld lang syne. Second series : $b My Indian friends
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
India; Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max), 1823-1900 -- Friends and associates
It is curious that he should not have drawn more of his countrymen to
follow him. His original conception of Christ’s teaching was such that
many an excellent Hindu could honestly have accepted it. If anywhere,
the harvest is ripe in India, and the labourers are many. Unfortunately
his philosophical Christianity became more and more ecclesiastical, nay
ritualistic in time, through influences which he was too weak to resist.
He might have done a great work in India; but what India wants is the
young and vigorous Christianity of the first century, not the effete
Christianity of the fifteenth century, still less its poor modern
imitations. Much the same opinion was expressed by an Indian
correspondent, Mr. Brojolall Chuckerbutty, a personal friend and admirer
of Nehemiah Goreh. In one of his letters to me he said: “Years ago I had
a long discussion in my own house with Nehemiah Nîlaka_nth_a Goreh
concerning the Christian religion. He, of course, tried hard to convert
me to his faith. But we arrived at a conclusion in which nothing was
concluded. I really could not understand how a man of Mr. Goreh’s
intelligence and learning, who had discarded Hinduism, could accept, in
its stead, popular Christianity which stands on the same level with
popular Hinduism. By popular Christianity I mean the Christianity of the
Church, as contra-distinguished from the Christianity of Christ.”
His friends have sometimes found fault with Nehemiah Goreh for having
during the latter part of his life so completely withdrawn himself from
the world and its social obligations. But here too we must learn to make
allowances for the old Indian leaven. He longed for rest. It was a
recognised thing in India—I speak, of course, of ancient India—that a
man who had fought his fight might retire from the world, shake off all
shackles, and become free, even here on earth. Many left their homes and
lived in forests—a most delightful way of life in India. These
anchorites, fugitives from the world, wanted very little to support
life, and that little, so far as we know, was either supplied by nature
or given them readily by the members of their family, or even by
strangers. There was no lack of family affection in India, but higher
than all worldly affections stood the ideal of Vairâgya, freedom from
all desires and passions, freedom from all worldly attachments, freedom
from all that must perish, real happiness in the Eternal, in the Self,
that is, in God who changes not. Some of the most beautiful poetry of
ancient and modern India was inspired by that sentiment of
unworldliness, the very opposite of that passionate love and attachment
which forms the constant theme of European poetry. Love, so far as it
means passion and desire, or exclusive attachment to one person, was
considered as of this world, and everything belonging to this world was
perishable, and therefore not worthy of our highest affection. The
Buddhists adopted the same doctrine, but, while condemning love, they
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