Though doubtless at a remote period, the progenitors of the western races dwelt with their oriental brothers in the far East; yet from the dawn of authentic history to the present day there has existed marked and fundamental differences in the habits of thought, the conceptions of life's purposes, and in the very aspirations of the soul, between the dwellers of the far East and those of Europe and America.
The oriental mind is meditative, philosophical, metaphysical and profoundly religious. The students of the far East are more deeply concerned with the philosophy of life here and hereafter, in the nature of man's being and the duties devolving upon him, than are they interested in the accumulation of wealth, or the consideration of those things which the western world regards as material and tangible.
The occidental world throughout its history has been largely engrossed in material advancement and excessive devotion to external matters; the trades of war and government, the arts which appeal to the sense perceptions, problems in physical science, inventions, commercial affairs, the pursuit of gold and kindred matters have largely dominated the soul of western life; so much so that they may I think be regarded as the well-springs of occidental civilization during the greater portion of its history. It is true that at intervals the higher emotions, and nobler aspirations have been so aroused by the quickening power of exalted ethical and religious truths that the downward trend has been arrested and communities, nations and even civilizations have been transformed and for a time revivified by the potency of spiritual truth. But the influence which has most frequently dominated our civilization throughout the ages, springs from allegiance to that which is material or objective.
The views of life held by the oriental and occidental worlds are radically unlike and perhaps there is something of the extreme in each; indeed instead of remaining antagonistic I believe each can be made to complement the other in such a way as to round out and enrich all life, providing the importance of the supremacy of the spiritual or ethical nature over the selfish propensities be recognized as fundamentally important to enduring and uninterrupted progress.
The thought-world of people chiefly engrossed in the externals of life is never free from a grave peril which sooner or later manifests itself in the triumph of the material over the spiritual, the domination of egotism over altruism, the subordination of the sense of right and justice to a desire for personal advancement or the success of some cause, the cultivation of a soulless intellectuality at the expense of an enlightened conscience.
This result was strikingly illustrated in the civilization of the Roman world when Christianity — an oriental religion — gave Europe a moral uplift which for a time promised to bring about that essential union of the eastern and western thought-worlds which would naturally result in broad and deeply spiritual life, at once illuminating and glorifying the splendid intellectuality and tireless energy of the occidental world.
But this eastern religion, so pure and simple and soul-reaching in essence, soon became corrupted by the paganism of Rome and the deterioration continued until instead of being a tolerant persuasive power for the illumination and ennobling of life it became intolerant, superstitious, dogmatic and ruthlessly savage, even eclipsing pagan Rome in its inhuman methods of torture when dealing with unbelievers.
The spirit of persecution is foreign to any true religion, its influence is brutalizing, it fosters the most savage impulses in man, and with its presence in the church established by the Nazarene brought spiritual stagnation. A moral eclipse followed and the glory of the primitive church well-nigh vanished.
During the first century of modern times we see a partial halt in the retrograde movement coincident with a marvelous advance along material lines. But here again the broader thought and nobler ideas were largely due to the inspiration of a vanished civilization which in its turn had been a debtor to Asiatic thought.
It will be remembered that it was not until after the fall of Constantinople and the dispersion of Greek scholars throughout the cities of Italy and elsewhere, that that marvelous awakening which we call the Renaissance or the New Birth assumed commanding proportions.
There was something quite wonderful in the revivifying influence which the new learning exerted upon the conscience of this period. It led Colet to establish the foundation for broad, humane and popular education. It fired the soul of Erasmus and literally drove him from land to land, making his a voice crying aloud for a purified church. It illuminated the brain of Sir Thomas More and called forth Utopia. It fed the flame of the Reformation, but it was not potent enough to lift man out of the mire of dogmatism. He had too long accustomed his mind to dwell on a gross and material conception of a future life. He believed in a literal hell of eternal fire for a large majority of the children of earth. His conception of God and his beliefs in the future were grossly material and essentially brutalizing; and though he was able to make the age the most glorious in the realm of art, though in the fields of discovery, commerce and invention, dazzling achievements were made, the moral uplift was limited and the savage persecutions which followed illustrated in a tragic manner the legitimate result of that excessive devotion to the material which invests all things, even to religion, with grossness, and which fosters narrow dogmatism and a superstitious reverence for the letter, even frequently to the exclusion of the spirit, no less than it encourages soulless selfishness where it should stimulate enthusiasm for humanity.
During the past century, amid the marvelous achievements along lines of material progress, amid the rapid multiplication of schools and the increase in intellectual training, western civilization has by no means made spiritual progress commensurate with advance along other lines. Indeed, the passion for gold which has almost assumed the form of a mania, is having a soul-deadening effect upon society, even as in the melancholy days when the Roman Empire passed into the long agony of decline. And as in periods of spiritual eclipse in the past we see groaning misery existing side by side with colossal fortunes; the palace and the hovel jostle, and too frequently we see idleness in the palace and industry in the hovel.
The power of the church over the mind of the multitude has declined in a startling manner during the past century, and the real reason is not hard to find. The golden rule is becoming a dead letter. Jesus is no longer the ideal for youth. He was, we are gravely informed, "an impractical idealist," because he taught the brotherhood of man. The slogan: Justice, freedom and fraternity, well represents the ethics promulgated by Jesus, but it is odious to the multi-millionaire pillars of conventional churches. Hence the church is losing its grasp on the heart of the masses, as the pagan priesthood lost its hold on the people in the days of the Caesars.
But amid all tile ferment, turmoil and unrest of today, amid the satiety of the well-fed animal on the one hand and the physical and spiritual hunger of the masses on the other, comes again a message from the Orient.
It is not my purpose at present to institute any comparison between religious theories, or to champion any special philosophy of life. I merely wish to point out facts which must be apparent to careful observers who are in touch with the most earnest workers throughout America and Europe.
A religious revolution is in progress within and without the churches. Many and complete are the causes which are accelerating this revolution, but it is a significant fact that the new conceptions of life are in strange alignment with the most exalted teachings of the sages of India. Even the masterpieces of the greatest mystic among modern poets — Robert Browning — -savor strongly of oriental philosophy when they deal with life, with man, and the hereafter. Max Muller has compelled scholars to yield an unwilling ear while he has pointed out the strength, power and beauty of India's literature and philosophy. But it has been chiefly through other and multitudinous channels that the noblest truths of the philosophy of the far east has come into the lives of the heart-hungry ones of the Occident, giving to life a new meaning, giving to the soul something more than the husks of a dogmatic theology, teaching the august duty of life and its awful responsibilities. Victor Hugo on one occasion said: "The tendency of man today is to fall into his stomach, man must be rescued." And it seems to me that in this rescuing of our civilization from a gross self-absorbed materialism, Indian thought is destined to play an important part. It is supplying to thousands upon thousands of lives the moral uplift which must permeate society if it is destined to move onward and upward without suffering another eclipse.