syllogisms. This has been in all ages the
chief characteristic of speculative Hinduism. And the Bhagavad Gita
furnishes one of its very best illustrations. Of its eighteen chapters,
fifteen are devoted to "Eight Knowledge." And by knowledge is meant
abstract speculation. It is a reaching after oneness with the deity by
introspection and metaphysical analysis.

"Even if thou wert the greatest evil-doer among all the unrighteous,"
says Krishna, "thou shalt cross over all sins even by the ark of
knowledge." "Oh, Arjuna, as blazing fire reduces fuel to ashes, so the
fire of knowledge turns all action into ashes." But in the first place a
knowledge of the infinite within us is unattainable, and in the second
place it could not avail us even if attainable. It is not practical
knowledge; it is not a belief unto righteousness. Faith is not an act of
the brain merely, but of the whole moral nature. The wisdom of self must
be laid aside, self-righteousness cast into the dust, the pride and
rebellion of the will surrendered, and the whole man become as a little
child. This is the way of knowledge that can be made experimental; this
is the knowledge that is unto eternal life.

3. Another great differential of the New Testament is found in its true
doctrine of divine co-operation with the human will. Our personality is
not destroyed that the absolute may take its place, but the two act
together. "For men of renunciation," says the Bhagavad Gita, "whose
hearts are at rest from desire and anger, and knowing the only self,
there is on both sides of death effacement (of the individual) in the
supreme spirit." In such a person, therefore, even on this side of
death, there is a cessation of the individual in the supreme. Over
against this the Gospel presents the doctrine of co-operative grace,
which instead of crippling our human energies arouses them to their
highest and best exertion. "Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of
his good pleasure." The divine acts with and through the human, but does
not destroy it. It imparts the greatest encouragement, the truest
inspiration.

4. We notice but one more out of many points of contrast between the
doctrines of the Hindu and the Christian Bibles, viz., the difference
between ascetic inaction and the life of Christian activity as means of
religious growth. I am aware that in the earlier chapters of the
Bhagavad Gita,