পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (প্রথম কল্প দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/১৬৩

তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা । మwiRīāqiū of virtue and religion,-the actions good or bad which proceed from him in the free agency that has been permitted him, being always attended by their inevitable consequences, aud according to their qualities, either bringing him nearer or throwing him at a distance from that goal of all his pursuits in which consist the perfections of his nature. Surely this idea of futurity is equally cheering and awful, and it appears to us to be at once corsonant to our notions of infinite inerey and le feet justi. e. মোনি মন্যে প্ৰপদ্যন্তে শরীর স্বাস দেধি ন । স্থাণমন্যেনুসথ মস্তি থাক:ম যথাক্রত" ॥ সোমলোকে বিভূতিমনু ভূম পুনরাবস্তুতে ॥ S BBB B BBBB BBS BBBB BB BBSS স ও গু পদমr:প্লাঠি মৰ্ম্মাদুয়োন জাহাতে ॥ 1'his doctrine wf fransmigratiom has been nl)jected to by the Christians, though they themselves believe in the resurrection of the dead, and in a lay of judgment. Hut shi fact of our souls passing from one body to another after death. is not contran y to the course of nature, and, in our belief, offers a better view of our prospect in future, and one more in accordance with our motions of justice and inercy, acting in unison with each other, than the t the idea of the dead ai ising from what condition it is not known after a long interim and reeeiving the judgment die to their fictions for all etermity the caster, without any trial being tallowed them ful ther than what a single life afforded. We now come to that part of the doctrines · „f the Vaids, which inculcate tlaut those w lito can not turn their minds to God in spirit should worship Him through the mediual of matter. There are men of th;it grovelling class whose minds are incapable of making a proper degree of exertion, and these are required not to lose themselves in the mazes of irreligion, the hanes of society, but rather to fix their attention on some of the grandest objects of the world, and “onsider them to he so many manifestations of the supremacy of the only True God who perwades all creation, and to worship them as so animated by His influence, that thus their minds may be gradually trained by spiritual tuition to the true mental adoration of the Supreme Being. This worship of spirit through matter, in one shape or other, appears to have been as ផែ្ល necessary and congenial to the habits of man in the early ages of the world ; but while it was permitted, as the mean between irreligion on the one hand, and spiritual devotion on the other, its nature was truely depicted throughout our revealed books in which it was every where mentioned as a merely preparatory step, and described as beneficial only by leading to the portal of pure religion; so that to give a religious turn to the mind, and keep up a belief in the existence of God, was the sole object of all the religious practices and Yuggnyas onjoined in the Vaids. These were to prepare men for those trains of thought which lead to religious contentment and resignation-to thé habitual practice of charity to the needy-honour to others—friendship and regard to all, and to see the work of an almighty and merciful hand in creation. The elements and more striking objects in creation, and the personified virtues and powers in sun who directs our uuderstanding.” verse indicates the general way in which the ২২৭ голежапа: } } the moral world, are, by the Vaids, made the instruments of offering feligions adoration, and so made only in conjunction with the idea of some of the divine attributes being manifested in, hy, or through them, and always without allowing the notion of unity and spiritual existence of God to be lost sight of. It was, at the same time, explicitly enjoined however that those parts of the Vaids which inculcated these matters, should always he remembered as the injunctions mercifully made for the honesis of the ignorant and untrained, and that those who were at all capable, were only to pay their adoration in spirit and purity. It should be recollected that the revelations of the Vaids, were made at a tine when the world was, yet, in its infancy, and the oljeet which they had, at first, în viev , was to wean men from their crude thoughts, and irregulat habits, and to tryin theim in the ways of truth, righteousness and virtue. It should not la: wondered, therefore, that burnt and other ofterings and the adoration of the div unity by plaises and thanksgivings offered directly to ) is visible works and manifest attributes, and to personifications of the powers of nature and affections of the mind, should be enjoined by revelation. That befame, undler the throu existing circumstances, a necessary stà, ut r liv attainment of the sacred knowledge. ('nder the Christian dispensations we find it declared “ But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and truth.” This passage quoted from the Gospel of John would evidently show that the predecessors of Christ were in the habit of worshipping God not in spirit and truth, but through matter and in an indirect way The books of Leveticus also plainly inculcat,' many religious practices and the propriety of burnt and other offerings of a similar nature to those of the V aids. The Christians therefore ought, at once, to see the necessity of such revelations as we have been here speaking of. We ourselves doubt that there is the same necessity of worshipping (iod through matter at the present age of the world, but at the periods when our inspired sages uttered their precepts of religion, the state of things was quite distrent from what we now see, and Providence would direct matters adapted to the circumstances of every age, and even y grade of intellect. Polytheism is in no way, implicated, in the doctrines here referred to, on the contrary the Vaids inculcate every where that whether fire. air, water, the sun, moon, Indra (the personisied grandeur of the celestial regions romised for the good works of mati, ) \'aruna (the personification of the benefits ari:ing from water the drink of life.) or any other such entity, form the niedium throiigh which we offer adoration, it, should always in borne in mind, while such worship is ostered, that the objects mentioned are only the manifestations of the lower or mercy or perfection of the One Incomprehensible Supreme Spirit, which pervades all creation, which regulates every part of the world, from which all have proceeded, and in which all exist. “We meditate on the Supreme Spirit of the splendid This worship here described is to be offered, and