The Higher Hinduism in Relation to Christianity. By T. E.
Slater. (Elliot Stock. 6s.)—Mr. Slater, who is attached to the London Missionary Society, gives'us here a most interesting and helpful volume. It has been recognised for some time that it is necessary for those who do mission work in India, at least in what may be called civilised and educated India, to possess special qualifications. Above all things, they must understand and appre- ciate the great religious system with which they find themselves in contact. Students with this aim in view cannot do better than consult Mr. Slater's book. It will serve as a most useful guide to a vast and often difficult region of knowledge. Both ancient Hinduism and the efforts to develop it into forms more in agreement with modern thought are here set forth with much skill This is a subject wherein it is especially difficult to keep the just mean. On the one side there is the common tendency, only too natural to the English temper, to pass by the whole sub- ject with neglect or even contempt ; on the other, there is some- tin2es a movement towards unreasoning eulogy. But no one can read the sacred books of India without seeing that in the midst of much that is dignified and true there is no little of the trivial, and even of the impure; while as to the Indian philosophy, Mr. Slater truly observes that "it is not philosophy in the European sense ; it is not a search for truth for truth's sake." It knows no development. Its devotees are "philosophisers rather than philosophers." We cannot treat the book with the fulness that it deserves. It must suffice to describe it as an admirable example of the rationally sympathetic spirit which is, we hope, to do so much for missionary effort in the future.
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