but was perfectly familiar with Hindu traditions and modes of thought.  He was as well qualified to judge of early Hinduism as Paul was of Judaism, and for the same reason.  And from his Hindu standpoint, as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, though afterward a Christian convert, he did not hesitate to declare his belief, not only that the early Vedic faith was monotheistic, but that it contained traces of that true revelation, once made to men.[138]

In the same line we find the testimony of the various types of revived Aryanism of our own times.  The Brahmo Somaj, the Arya Somaj, and other similar organizations, are not only all monotheistic, but they declare that monotheism was the religion of the early Vedas.  And many other Hindu reforms, some of them going as far back as the twelfth century, have been so many returns to monotheism.  A recent Arya catechism published by Ganeshi, asserts in its first article that there is one only God, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal.  It proceeds to show that the Vedas present but one, and that when hymns were addressed to Agni, Vayu, Indra, etc., it was only a use of different names for one and the same Being.[139]

It represents God as having all the attributes of supreme Deity.  He created the world by His direct power and for the revelation of His glory to His creatures.  Man, according to the Aryas, came not by evolution nor by any of the processes known to Hindu philosophy, but by direct creation from existing atoms.

In all this it is easy to see that much has been borrowed from the Christian conception of God’s character and attributes, but the value of this Aryan testimony lies in the fact that it claims for the ancient Vedas a clear and positive monotheism.

If we consult the sacred books of China, we shall find there also many traces of an ancient faith which antedates both Confucianism and Taouism.  The golden age of the past to which all Chinese sages look with reverence, was the dynasty of Yao and Shun, which was eighteen centuries earlier than the period of Confucius and Laotze.  The records of the Shu-king which Confucius compiled, and from which unfortunately his agnosticism excluded nearly all its original references to religion, nevertheless retain a full account of certain sacred rites performed by Shun on his accession to the full imperial power.  In those rites the worship of One God as supreme is distinctly set forth as a “customary service,” thereby implying that it was already long established.  Separate mention is also made of offerings to inferior deities, as if these were honored at his own special instance.  It is unquestionably true that in China, and indeed in all lands, there sprang up almost from the first a tendency to worship, or at least to fear, unseen spirits.  This tendency has coexisted with all religions of the world—­even with the Old Testament cult—­even with Christianity.  To the excited imaginations of men, especially the