পাতা:হিন্দুধর্ম্মের শ্রেষ্ঠতা.pdf/৭৪

( 3 ) able order by all IIindus of learning and respectability. The worship of images is declared to be an act of inferior merit even . by later authorities, those perhaps with which it originated, and it is defended only upon the same pled which has been ured in other times and other countries—that the vulgar cannot raise their conceptions to abstract deity, and require some perceptible object to which their senses may be addressed. ‘Corresponding to the natures of different powers and qualities' it is said “numerous figures have been invented for the benefit of those who are not possessed of sufficient understanding.' And again : ‘The vulgar look for their Gods in water; men of more extended knowledges, in the celestial bodies; the ignorant, in wood, bricks and stones.' It is almost certain therefore, that the practice of worshipping idols in temples was not the religion of the Vedas.” Ibid, pp. 53-54. “There are several sects that have abandoned all worship of idols, that deny the efficacy of faith in any of the popular divimities, and question the reasonableness of many of the existing institutions: they have substituted a moral for a coremonial code, and address their prayers to one only God. These sects are not numerous but they are in general respectable.” Ibid, page 76. “The Brahmans who compiled a code of Hindu Law, by command of Warren Hastings, preface their performance by affirming the equal merit of every form of religious worship. Contrarieties of belief and diversities of religion, they say, are in fact part of the scheme of Providence, for as a painter gives beauty to a picture by a variety of colours, or as a gardener embellishes his garden with flowers of every hue, so G od appointed to every tribe its own faith and every sect its own religion, that man might glorify him in diverse modes, all having the same end, and behg equally acceptable in his sight.” Ibid, page 82. “The simple fact, then, of the existence of One Supreme Špiritual Cause of all things—supreme over and quite distinct from