Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative TheologyClarke, James Freeman
Islamic
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
Clarke, James Freeman
Christianity and other religions; Religions
In the "History of the Ti-Ping Revolution" (published in London in 1866),
written by an Englishman who held a command among the Ti-Piugs, there is
given a full, interesting, and apparently candid account of the religious
and moral character of this great movement, from which I take the
following particulars:--
"I have probably," says this writer,[24] "had a much greater experience
of the Ti-Ping religious practices than any other European, and as a
Protestant Christian I have never yet found occasion to condemn their form
of worship. The most important part of their faith is the Holy Bible,--Old
and New Testaments, entire. These have been printed and circulated
gratuitously by the government through the whole population of the Ti-Ping
jurisdiction." Abstracts of the Bible, put into verse, were circulated and
committed to memory. Their form of worship was assimilated to
Protestantism. The Sabbath was kept religiously on the seventh day. Three
cups of tea were put on the altar on that day as an offering to the
Trinity. They celebrated the communion once a month by partaking of a cup
of grape wine. Every one admitted to their fellowship was baptized, after
an examination and confession of sins. The following was the form
prescribed in the "Book of Religious Precepts of the Ti-Ping
Dynasty":--[25]
_Forms to be observed when Men wish to forsake their Sins_--"They must
kneel down in God's presence, and ask him to forgive their sins. They may
then take either a basin of water and wash themselves, or go to the river
and bathe themselves; after which they must continue daily to supplicate
Divine favor, and the Holy Spirit's assistance to renew their hearts,
saying grace at every meal, keeping holy the Sabbath day, and obeying all
God's commandments, especially avoiding idolatry. They may then be
accounted the children of God, and their souls will go to Heaven when they
die."
The prayer offered by the recipient of Baptism was as follows:--
"I (A. B.), kneeling down with a true heart, repent of my sins, and pray
the Heavenly Father, the great God, of his abundant mercy, to forgive my
former sins of ignorance in repeatedly breaking the Divine commands,
earnestly beseeching him also to grant me repentance and newness of life,
that my soul may go to Heaven, while I henceforth truly forsake my former
ways, abandoning idolatry and all corrupt practices, in obedience to
God's commands. I also pray that God would give me his Holy Spirit to
change my wicked heart, deliver me from all temptation, and grant me his
favor and protection, bestowing on me food and raiment, and exemption from
calamity, peace in this world and glory in the next, through the mercies
of our Saviour and Elder Brother, Jesus, who redeemed us from sin."
In every household throughout the Ti-Ping territory the following
translation of the Lord's Prayer was hung up for the use of the children,
printed in large black characters on a white board:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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