One of the hideous gods in the inner sanctuary of a temple. To such an idol, millions of Hindus constantly direct their worship.
Looking for a Deliverer.
—The Bombay Guardian, copy of which is sent us of October 5, shows that there is gaining root in that country what is called the new Avatara, or J. K., worship. This has taken strong hold upon the Theosophical Society, one of whose leading lights is Mrs. Anna Besant, who was at first the wife of a country clergyman, and later an ardent follower of Bradlaugh the notorious infidel, and then fell under the influence of Madam Blavatsky, and who now assumes a leadership herself.
Bhagwân Dâs argues: “A world teacher is needed sorely; therefore he will come, and by taking a disciple’s body some forty years hence, or fifteen, or only ten, as the world’s need is great. This one [J. K.] is the most likely; therefore this is the one. The world teacher’s influence is already upon it. What can outsiders know? They have only to believe and follow. Let us all begin worshiping it at once. No others are any good.” This J. K., they believe, is the second god of the great Hindu triad, who has had nine separate incarnations of deity, and they believe that the tenth and the last is still to be, when the last Avatara is revealed in the sky riding a white horse, with a drawn sword blazing like a comet, for the final destruction of the wicked and the restoration of purity, righteousness, and peace. Then the last age, the age of universal righteousness, will set in.
Such is Hindu common belief, we are told, and it is also true to some extent a belief shared by all religions: the Jew, the Christian, the Mohammedan, and the Buddhist,—all wait for the Coming One. Some of the Theosophists have already chosen the one who is to become the incarnation of the Coming One. This cult of the Coming One Mrs. Besant is preaching with great enthusiasm. She says: “We see other signs of the approaching coming, in the rapidly increasing expectation, and in the desire expressed in so many directions for the arising of a leader strong enough to deal with difficulties menacing the very foundations of society in the West. . . . The crisis in which we are standing is too great for ordinary men to deal with, and we lift up our eyes to the hills, whence great teachers have come aforetime to the world’s helping. Surely the world’s need has never been greater than it is to-day.”
But Mrs. Besant, and all the others who are looking for that Coming One, will not find it in the cultured youth J. K., nor in any other hoped-for human, but in Jesus Christ the Lord. He has already come as a Saviour from sin, a Saviour who would bring relief to India to-day, if He were received individually by its people. Some day He is coming again. Let our readers hold to the Holy Scriptures as to what that coming shall be, and endeavor to help all those who are looking for some coming deliverer to see that this coming deliverer is the Christ of God.
