Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 648

INCOHERENT RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
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they said, the Vishnavites daily perforin similar miracles
during the ceremony of pavadam.
It is that
What conclusion must be drawn from all this
a wise and reasonable religious belief cannot be evolved by
human agency alone. God alone is the Supreme Lawgiver.
God alone can interpret His mysterious will to His Prophets
and His Church. Without His grace reason is at fault, and
False teachers
is lost in the uncertainty of idle imaginings.
of idolatry may invent dogmas and systems, but they can
never reconcile them or build upon them any stable struc-
for,
(
ture of religion.
If, for inscrutable reasons, which it is not given to us to
know, God has not been pleased to reveal Himself till now
to a people whose civilization dates back to the darkest
ages, we at any rate should congratulate ourselves on
having been chosen as the objects of His favour.
Many Europeans who visit India are struck by the in-
coherency of ideas that prevails in the religion professed
by its inhabitants, and by the variety of its doctrines and
ceremonies and being far from robust in their own faith,
they end by endorsing one of the favourite axioms of modern
philosophy, namely, that all religions are equally agree-
But to me
able to God and lead to the same good end.'
the strange and disquieting picture of Hindu religion has
always presented itself in quite a different aspect. The
sight of such an extraordinary religious cult, far from
shaking my faith, has on the contrary greatly contributed
to confirm it \
Certainly, every time that I compare the grand simplicity
of our Holy Scriptures, the sublime teachings of our Gospel,
;
'
1
Tartar king, recently converted, having communicated to Louis IX
his intention of prostrating himself at the feet of the Pope, who was then
at Lyons, the saintly monarch dissuaded him, for fear that the dissolute
manners of the Christians might weaken the belief of this stranger in the
sanctity of the Catholic religion.
This precaution was no doubt wise.
Nevertheless, another traveller, who was a witness of the immorality
A
of the Roman people, felt his faith strengthened, and came to the con-
clusion that there could be only one true religion that could be upheld
by God's omnipotence amidst such terrible corruption. For my part,
I cannot conceive how any Christian can consistently ignore his religious
duties when he becomes closely acquainted with an idolatrous people
and with the perverse infatuation and extravagant unreasonableness
which distinguish an idolatrous cult. Dubois.