WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE BIBLES?
By W. J. Lhamon
CALL them Bibles if you will, these Vedas, and Shastras, and Avestas, and Kings, and Koran. But what is wrong with them? Call them Bibles, but judge them by their fruits and say if you can why they mingle such a maximum of bitterness with their minimum of sweetness. These are the great books of the East, and they have been so for centuries. Why are Japan and China and Burma and India and Turkey what they are now, if these books are altogether wholesome? Why does China stand with her face to the past, worshiping her ancestors, whenever she worships gods that are no worse? Why is her government hopelessly corrupt? And why has she no provision for popular education? And why are the masses of her people hopelessly illiterate? And why are they helpless in the presence of disease and hopeless in the presence of death? The Vedas are older than the New Testament by several centuries. Why are women so degraded in India?—They are the slaves of the zenanas. Only one out of 173 can read. Widows are scorned and oppressed. Cows are honored and worshiped. Monkeys are popular gods. Everything is worshiped according to the whim of the superstition of the worshiper. Sudras are scorned by Brahmans, but snakes are sacred. As in ancient Athens, so in modern India, it is easier to find a god than a man. By penances or pilgrimages, devotees think to merit salvation, regardless of repentance, character, or kinship with a holy God. Temple roofs are the shelter at once of the formal worship and physical defilement of priests and their people. Something must be wrong with the Vedas and the Shastras. Here is a picture of temple worship in Calcutta sufficiently shocking to emphasize our reflection that something must be wrong with the Bibles of that land. It is from an article in this May number of the Missionary Review of the World. The very pious and well-known B. F. Meyer made, last winter, a tour of India, and this is one of the scenes he describes: 'Visit the temple of Uali in Calcutta. It is a gruesome and terrible spectacle. It is well to have seen it once, but I have no desire to repeat the experience. We saw the image of the goddess with her red tongue protruding as it is said to have done on that bloody field of battle, when she discovered she was treading on the dead body of her spouse. The temple, filthy in the extreme, is beset with beggars, especially women, and is the rendezvous of villainous people of all kinds. Scores of worshipers may be seen carrying or leading kids,13which are on sale in the neighborhood. Before the British Government stopped it, children were sacrificed to this horrible deity, but now kids are substituted. Whilst we were standing there, one was brought, its head fixed in a cross-piece of wood, and with one blow severed from its body. Then, as its warm blood covered the pavement, a fakir, with matted hair, came and danced in it, bathing his feet in the gore." What can be wrong with the Koran? The Turk is essentially a barbarian. His recent atrocities in Armenia will not soon be forgotten. They are blood-curdling and indescribable. It was not warfare, not even decent, wholesale murder, but brutal butchery of men, women, children, and communities. And that not in violation of the Turkish faith but under the commendation of it. Slave-stealing and slave-trading in Africa and Arabia are carried on by Mohammedans almost exclusively, and that in the interest of slave-holding Mohammedans in Arabia and Persia. Abysinnian boys and girls in the market of Shiraz are worth about as much as riding horses and baggage mules. At Mecca, where all the Mohammedans go to pray, there is a slave market and an immense trade. The horrors of this slave-raiding in Africa, and slave-trading in Arabia, can not be told in one page or many; but, however horrible it is, however repulsive and cruel and murderous, the Koran does not forbid it. It is a privilege of the Mohammedan religion. Mohammed himself was a slave-holder. There must be something vitally, mightily wrong with the Bible of the Mohammedans. We spoke recently of Christianity as a peerless religion. Our Bible is a peerless Bible. The New Testament teaching of the Golden Rule and the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God are par excellence. There is no defect in the character of Christ; there is nothing to add to His precept; there is nothing to subtract from His practises. He is wholly sweet and helpful and wholesome. "The astounding fact is that the Bible is the only book in the world that will bear full and permanent translation into life. We all feel sure that it would be better than well for the world if the precepts of this volume were absorbed and transmuted into the actions of men." Our students are asked to keep these questions in mind while studying the religions of the lands where we have planted missions. —W. J. Lhamon, in Bethany C. E. Readings.