The Land of the Veda/Preface
PREFACE.
THE writer of this book has aimed to act toward the reader in the relation of a guide, as though he were going over the ground again, and giving the benefit of his experience, in pointing out the objects of interest with which years and study have familiarized his own mind. The thread of the narrative runs through the work, and, so far as the subject permitted, its continuity has been preserved.
In a theme like that of India, and after the reading and note-taking of fifteen years, it is a difficult task for an author to trace every entry to its source, or adequately to discriminate between what is original and what is borrowed. Every reasonable effort, however, has been made to give proper acknowledgment wherever it was found desirable to use the ideas or language of others.
While the denominational relation of the writer is evident enough, he trusts that there will not be found on these pages a single sentence that can give offense to any member of Christ's Church, but, on the contrary, that their perusal may encourage and strengthen the faith of God's elect in that almighty Power which, even in the idolatrous and conservative East, is so manifestly subduing all things unto Himself. Here may be discerned the dawn of that day, so long foretold, when all Oriental races shall be blessed in a Redeemer who was himself Asiatic by birth and blood and the sphere of His personal ministry—whose cross was erected on that continent, and whose first ministers and members were taken from among that people. The hundreds of millions of their descendants now await this redemption, and shall yet joyously unite to crown him “Lord of all.”
The writer has not concealed his conviction that human history, and the movements and changes of thrones, and powers, and kingdoms, can be fully understood only in the light of the doctrine of the Second Psalm. Jesus Christ, the divine and eternal Son of God, who created and redeemed this world, is its “Master and Lord.” The number, the malignity, the counsel of his foes, are lighter in his estimation than the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and as easily swept from the path of his almighty movements. He has not abandoned this world, with its thousand millions of accountable and dying men, to be the victims of the whims and caprice of selfish potentates, deceiving errorists, or wicked spirits in high places, to be forever crushed down beneath their tyranny and misdirection. He has undertaken, and will accomplish, man's redemption in every sense, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.
That repose which the world, and particularly its Oriental portion, so much needs and has so long sighed for, is to be found only in Him; and it will come when He has overthrown the foes of the world's welfare, and rectified its many wrongs. Then, beneath the benign administration of this “Prince of Peace,” humanity at length shall rest, each of them under his own vine and fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid.
The government of Christ alone explains the condition and the history of the world. We acknowledge him to be “The blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” whose scepter sways “all power in heaven and in earth.” At his feet, who is “Prince of the kings of the earth,” and “Head over all things to the Church,” is laid this humble effort to illustrate his high providence, as one more heartfelt tribute to be added to the many which are already ascribing—“Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power unto Him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!”