"HALL OF RELIGIONS"

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13674, 17 August 1908, Page 7

"HALL OF RELIGIONS"

LESSONS TO BE LEARNT. Bv Rev. Dr. Garvie. One of " the most interesting and valuable features of the Orient Exhibition at Islington is the Hall of Rehgion*. Th* purpose of the Exhibition .s to show through the eye, as well as the ear, the fields in which the London Missionary Society is scattering the- seed of the .Gospel and the manifold way in which this lowing is being done, as well as some of the frui.s that have been already gathered. , The assnmption is that the work is needful and good. To some persons this will seem an assumption that needs justification. J COMPARATIVE STUDY. Have not the other races of mankind their own religion, which as their own is more likely to be fitted to their needs than the religion we send them can be. A. visit to the Hall of Religions, with the evidence it offers to the superstition and degradation, the cruelty and sufferings, many of these worships involve, wid afford an answer. And it has lo be remembered that the worst feature could not be laid bare, as the Christian sense of decency would forbid. Another purpose this collection of typical scenes from the religious worship of mankind should serve. ° It should bring home to those who favour foreign missions the fact, which is surely also the strongest appeal, that man by necessity of his nature is religious; however ignorant or undeveloped, in. some form or another lie is seeking after God. Ifc is to be hoped, however, that this enterprise will have not only these immediate practical effects,' but that it will arouse an abiding interest in that most iascinating study, the science of comparative religion. There are three reasons why that study has a claim on those who favour foreign missions. First of all, many of the facts about jnatr's religious beliefs and habits have been gathered together by missionaries. Their continued residence among, and their ciose contact with, the varions peoples enable them to gain a more intimate knowledge than the traveller or the trader can.

Secondly, in mission work, it is now more and more recognised' that the poinfc of contact for the Gospel must be sought in the religion of each people. The missionary" must-not only know his Gospel, but also how most quickljy and easily to reach ilie heart of those to vboEo he offers it. One religion is better -understood if not studied alone, but compared with others. What is obscure may thus be illuminated. Thirdly, »n apology for missions which" will sa.lsfy the modern mind must recognise) not only the defects, but tlie nverits of the faiths which the Christian Gospel seeks to displace, and must show not only the perils from which it delivers, but also the promise which it fulfils. MAN'S SPIRITUAL CRAYTXG. 'An impression which at first sight the Religions is likely to make will be corrected on closer study. So unlike do the forms of belief and worship seem to be, that it will be a labyrinth to which there is no clue. But amid all external differences there aTe fundamental resemblances. Peoples so lar removed from one another that there can be no question of borrowing on the one side or ther; other, .show the same beliefs or customs, justifying' the conclusion that the religious life is essentially the same in T _all men, and thai: the outward difare to be explaint>.l by local conditions and racial characteristics.

Not only so, tat, while : there is no absolute uniformity, a similar development of .religious beliefs and rites may be- ttvoed the whole world over. . At■thoughv "the savage must not be taken as representing -tiie-primitive man, yet the study of the religions of undeveloped races, taken*- along with the study of the growth of the. inner life in the child, tested- by the reflation of the religious man who- has reached an advanced stage of culture, enables us to affirm with a considerable degree of probability that animacism, or the belief in nature as living, even as the primitive man felt himself alive, came first; that this was followed by animism, or tin* belief in .spirits as controlling nature, with probably feti--cism as. the localisation of such spirits in individual objects, as a degradation rather than an advance.

As man came to feel bis closer. kinship with animal or plant- life, formed the conception of a class, and socially realised the tribal unity, toiemism may be supposed to.have emerged. As man learned to distinguish soul and body, and to believe in the survival of the soul after death, and as within the tribe the family became conscious of closer relationship*, ancestor worship was allied with the worship of the spLri.s of nature. In China we have animism' and ancestor worship. As the spirits were more definitely conceived and more highly exalted, they became-gods. The union of a number of tribes in one nation involved a fusion of the worship of their tribal gods, find so a polytheism, with nsually a sa-

premacy of one god over the others, was established. In India there .is a multitude 'of gods worshipped, and in that worship ritual is supreme, morality is ignored. . , RELIGIOUS REFORMERS. One of the most interesting features of the history of religion is the appearance of a number of leformers, who, where the change is thorough, may be regarded as the founders of new religions. Confucius aimed simply at preserving the ancestral beliefs and customs, especially the latter. Buddha offered a way of salvation from the misery of life quite apart from the popular gods and worship of India. His austere morality, by which man saves himself without the help of the gods, has been transformed into a fantastic and formalist polytheism, in which he himself is deified. Mohammed established a rigid monotheism among the polytheistic Arab tribes. In India there has been on the one hand a degredation of the older Brahmanic religion by the ready incorporation of popular superstitions aod corruptions, on the other an elevation in a speculative pantheism. Of this most alluring history the Hall of Religions offers carefully selected' and skilfully executed illustrations, and, therefore. • deserves the at;ention of '.all who desire a vivid impression of the religious life of mankind.