SOME LEADING IDEAS OF HINDUISM : BEING THE THIRTY-SECOND FERNLEY LECTURE DELIVERED IN MANCHESTER, AUGUST 1902

The Fernley Lecture as delivered in Manchester last year was the barest outline of what is contained in the present volume. The author undertook the delivery of it at that time to meet an emergency, and had to make what preparation he could while greatly pressed by other and more immediate duties. It was a condition of his undertaking the task at all then that the publication of the Lecture should follow at some later period. To the Trustees of the Fernley Board he is greatly obliged for the indulgence which has been so patiently extended to him. The subjects treated in this volume are, some of them, difficult, and they do not lend themselves readily to popular exposition. Yet that is what he has here attempted. He has desired to help the people of England to realise to themselves, as far as may be, the religious and philosophical standpoint of many of the people of India, and he has tried to do this in language as little technical as possible. Again and again, while writing these pages, he has almost despaired; but the attempt is well worth making, and he who best succeeds will have done an important work of mediation between East and West. It is especially worthwhile to impress upon English Christians the idea that the work of evangelising India is one that will make demand on their best intelligence and their most patient enthusiasm. The people of India must not be expected in an hour to shed the assumptions of a lifetime inherited from centuries, as a snake sheds its skin Casual, rapid, emotional work can afford no hope of wide and worthy success among the Hindus, Head and heart both are required for the great enterprise in India, and the former as much as the latter. It will be a great gain when the churches of this land have made this plain to themselves, and planned their campaign suitably to the special character of their enterprise.