ted upon Hinduism, yet it
had no hint of a Saviour from sin and death.[69]

Fifth, in Hinduism there is no liberty for the free action of the human
spirit. Though the life of a Brahman is intensely religious, yet it is
cramped with exactions which are not only abortive but positively
belittling. The code of Brahmanism never deals with general principles
in the regulation of conduct, but fills the whole course of life with
punctilious minutiae of observances. Instead of prescribing, as Christ
did, an all-comprehensive law of supreme love to God and love to our
neighbor as ourselves, it loads the mind with petty exactions, puerile
precepts, inane prohibitions. "Unlike Christianity, which is all spirit
and life," says Dr. Duff, "Hinduism is all letter and death." Repression
takes the place of inspiration and the encouragement of hope.

There are a thousand subtle principles in Hinduism whose influence is
felt in society and in the state, and to which the faith and power of
the Gospel present the very strongest contrasts. For example, while
Christianity has raised woman to a position of respect and honor, and
made her influence felt as something sacred and potential in the family
and in all society, Hinduism has brought her down even from the place
which she occupied among the primitive Aryans, to an ever-deepening
degradation. It has made her life a burden and a curse. Pundita Ramabai,
in her plea for high-caste Hindu women, quotes a prayer of a child widow
in which she asks, "O Father of the world, hast Thou not created us? or
has perchance some other God made us? Dost Thou only care for men? O
Almighty One, hast Thou not power to make us other than we are, that we
too may have some part in the blessings of life?" Even in this last
decade of the nineteenth century the priesthood of Bengal are defending
against all humane legislation those old customs which render the
girlhood of Hindu women a living death.[70]

In its broad influence Christianity has raised the once savage tribes
of Europe to the highest degree of culture, and made them leaders and
rulers of the world; but Hinduism has so weakened and humbled the once
conquering Aryans that they have long been an easy prey to every
invading race. Christianity shows in its sacred Book a manifest progress
from lower to higher moral standards--from the letter to the spirit,
from the former sins that were winked at to the perfect example of
Christ, from the narrow exclusive