he really exists himself and that everything he sees around him really
exists also. He cannot abandon these two primary convictions. Not so the
Hindu Vedantist. Dualism is his bugbear, and common sense, when it
maintains any kind of real duality, either the separate independent
existence of a man's own spirit and of God's spirit, or of spirit and
matter, is guilty of gross deception."

Another conception regards the human soul (_jivatma_) as a part of the
Supreme Soul. This theory adds small comfort or dignity to it when we
remember that this whole of which it is declared a part is an intangible,
unattractive Being--devoid of all qualities (_nirguna_). If the soul
existed from eternity as a part of the divine Soul and will ultimately
resume that interrupted existence, what value, ethical or otherwise, can
be attached to that bondage of manhood which was thrust upon the soul (or
was it voluntarily assumed?)? This part of deity called individual soul
certainly cannot be improved by its human conditions; and the question is
not--"How soon can I pass through this slough of despond," but, "why was I
thrust into it at all? Was it a mere sacred whim (_tiruvileiadal_) of
Brahm?"

Moreover this view of human "self," or soul, carries one out too far into
the sea of transcendental metaphysics to be of any practical use,
religiously. We know something of man--this strange compound of soul and
body--and we are deeply interested in his history and destiny; the more
deeply because we are included in this category.

But who knows of the eternal soul--that part of the absolute--separate from
human conditions and apart from all experiences of men? Is it not simply
the dream of the philosopher, a convenient assumption to satisfy the needs
of an impractical ontology? To magnify the soul apart from human life, and
to interpret human life as the self's lowest degradation and something
which is to be shaken off as quickly as possible, can hardly be sound
philosophy, and is certainly bad theology. It simply reduces this life
into an irremedial evil, with no moral significance or spiritual value.

This leads us to the second point of contrast:--

2. Their Ultimate Aim or Goal.

What do these two religions promise to do for those who embrace them? The
work which Christianity proposes to itself is difficult and glorious. It
takes fallen, sin-sodden, man and leads him out into a new life of
holiness; it opens out to him a long and br