Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 338

PERVERSE SUPERSTITION
298
Brahmin ancestors worshipped only
this one Supreme
but with the lapse of time they fell victims to
idolatry and superstition, and, shutting their eyes to the
light that they possessed, stifled the voice of conscience.
Was it not for the same reason that God pronounced that
condemnation of which the Apostle St. Paul speaks in the
Epistle to the Romans against certain philosophers of his
time, who knowingly rejected the truth
Is not this the
reason why the Brahmins of to-day are given over, like
those philosophers of old, to all the sins of a perverse will
and to the many kinds of vice and corruption with which
they are imbued, and from which other castes are more or
less exempt, seeing that they possess stronger faith ?
It is true that Brahmins are not the only philosophers
who have been induced by purely worldly considerations
to hide the greatest and most important of truths from
their fellow- men.
They are only following in the steps
Even Socrates, the
of the philosophers of ancient Greece.
greatest of them all, whose ideas on the subject of the Deity
were almost as perfect as those which have been given us
by revelation, never dared to avow them openly and,
although he thoroughly recognized all the absurdities of
paganism, he maintained the principle that every one should
their
Being
;
l
:
follow the religion of his country.
Plato, his disciple, who was so distressed that Greece
and all the other countries of the world should be given
over to a false and dissolute religion, and who also, like
Socrates, believed in the true God, said that these were
truths which should not be disclosed to the common
people.
The whole world, as Bossuet says, was plunged at that
time in the same error and truth, though known to a few,
remained captive and dared not appear in the light of day.
Those who knew and believed in the true God thought it
sufficient to worship Him in secret, and held that there
was no harm in paying outward respect to idols with the
Revelation had not yet purified their
rest of the world.
The truth was known only in one
ideas on this subject.
very small corner of the world. The worshippers of the
true God were only to be seen in small numbers in the
;
temple
of
Jerusalem.