National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
382 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP.
religion, with all the doubtful doctrines which have been hung on to it—as such doctrines do hang on to religions of every
type, as time goes on—is all right, and that every other religion
is all wrong. In uncompromising language they denounce the religion which differs from their own, and all that is connected
with it. They tell men who have been brought up from their childhood in it—and whose fathers, for hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years before them, have believed the truth of it —that they are to be damned eternally ; that all they believe is wrong ; and that unless they can believe in doctrinal Christianity, they will not be saved. Assertions like this, delivered by men very often of little culture, and little know-
ledge of the world and of human nature, naturally invite
hostility. Mohammedans, 'Buddhists, Confucianists, feel that
there is some right in what they profess, and they resent a
stranger, who very often is ignorant of what the tenets of their
religion really are, denouncing them, and trying to force his
own ideas so rudely upon them. And these " heathen " have reason. Students of their religions say that, in many points, these coincide with the Christian ; and, from experience among Mohammedans and Buddhists, I can say that, practically, in their lives they often work on very Christian-like principles.
I have found, too, at least among Mohammedans, that such general principles as doing to others as one would be done by
one's self, and the existence of a Deity ruling the universe, are thoroughly understood and appreciated, though the means for acting up to them are not always available.
Europeans who have lived in these strange lands, perhaps for years, away from their own church—among people of a
different religion to their own ; people whom they have been accustomed to hear spoken of as heathen, and, consequently, destined for eternal punishment—find themselves taking note of these men, observing their natures, and studying the kind of life they lead. And when it is found that the followers of
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