have given the
people that which they asked for, and the result is that many forms of
churchly ceremonialism, and forms of worship, maintain which are
abhorrent and repulsive to Western ideas. But we of the West are not
entirely free from this fault, as one may see if he examines some of the
religious conceptions and ceremonies common among ignorant people in
remote parts of our land. Certain conceptions, of an anthropomorphic
Deity held by some of the more ignorant people of the Western world are
but little advanced beyond the idea of the Devil; and the belief in a
horned, cloven-hoofed, spiked-tail, red-colored, satyr-like, leering
Devil, with his Hell of Eternal Fire and Brimstone, is not so uncommon
as many imagine. It has not been so long since we were taught that "one
of the chief pleasures of God and his angels, and the saved souls, will
be the witnessing of the tortures of the damned in Hell, from the walls
of Heaven." And the ceremonies of an old-time Southern negro
camp-meeting were not specially elevating or ideal.

Among the various forms of the religions of India we find some of the
before mentioned forms of philosophy believed and taught among the
educated people--often an eclectic policy of choosing and selecting
being observed, a most liberal policy being observed, the liberty of
choice and selection being freely accorded. But, there is always the
belief in Reincarnation and Karma, no matter what the form of worship,
or the name of the religion. There are two things that the Hindu mind
always accepts as fundamental truth, needing no proof--axiomic, in fact.
And these two are (1) The belief in a Soul that survives the death of
the body--the Hindu mind seeming unable to differentiate between the
consciousness of "I Am," and "I always Have Been, and always Shall
Be"--the knowledge of the present existence being accepted as a proof of
past and future existence; and (2) the doctrine of Reincarnation and
Karma, which are accepted as fundamental and axiomic truths beyond the
need of proof, and beyond doubt--as a writer has said: "The idea of
Reincarnation has become so firmly fixed and rooted in the Hindu mind as
a part of belief that it amounts to the dignity and force of a moral
conviction." No matter what may be the theories regarding the nature of
the universe--the character of the soul--or the conception concerning
Deity or the Supreme Being--you will always find the differing sects,
schools, and individu