RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE HINDUS.
One of the prominent characters of the World's Parliament of Religions was the Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk. On his return to Hindustan he gave a course of lectures in Madras, and from these the Independent quotes from the Indian Mirror a portion, showing, in the opinion of the monk, the religious condition of the Hindus. He first tells us that the old Vedic religion was beautiful and pure, but this was destroyed by the lower races which accepted Buddhism. And here is the result in the decay of religion and race:— “Before a century had passed, they brought out their snakes, their ghosts, and all the other things their ancestors used to worship, and thus the whole of India became one degraded mass of superstition. . . . I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books9that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism. . . . The Tartars and the Beluchis and all the hideous races came to India and became Buddhists, and assimilated with us [Indians] and brought their national customs, and the whole of our national life became a huge page of the most horrible and most bestial customs. “Compared to many other races, I must tell you in plain words we are weak, very weak. First of all is our physical weakness. That physical weakness is the cause at least of one-third of our miseries. We are lazy, we can not work; we can not combine; we do not love each other; we are immensely selfish; we are what the women of Europe are; not three of us can come together without hating each other, without being jealous of each other. That is the state in which we are, hopelessly disorganized mobs, immensely selfish; fighting each other for centuries, whether a certain mark is to be put this way, or a certain that way; writing volumes and volumes upon such momentous questions as whether the look of a man spoils my food or not. These we have been doing for the last few centuries. We can not expect anything more, except what we have just now, of a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully beautiful problems and researches. And we are not ashamed. Ay, sometimes we are; but we can not do what we think! Think we many things and never do; till, parrot-like, thinking has become a habit and never doing. . . . We have lost faith. Would you believe me, we have less faith than the English men and women, thousand times less faith? These are plain words, but I say them; can not help it. . . . Your blood is only a pint of tar, your brain is sloughing, your body is weak. You talk of reforms, of ideals, and all these for the last 100 years; and when it comes to practise, you are not to be found anywhere; so that you have disgusted the whole world, and the very name of reform is a thing of ridicule to the whole world. The only cause is you are weak, weak, weak; your body is weak, your mind is weak. You have no faith in yourselves. Like the downtrodden and broken-back-boneless worms you are.” To this the Independent adds: “That is plain talk. And here in this country are mannish women and womanish men looking to India for light, where this man, who knows India from Hardwar to Cape Comorin, sees only, in his own capitals, “THE MOST ROTTEN SUPERSTITIONS IN THE WORLD.” This is Buddhism in its ripened state.