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RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS
those persons who devote themselves to contemplative devotion, not to those who are engaged in the daily duties of social life. It is, however, undeniable, that in contradiction to these negative descriptions we have affirmative attributes asserted: “God is a Spirit," "the Supreme Spirit;" he is knowledge, he is purity, he is happiness; he sees all, he hears all, he moves whithersoever he will, he takes whatsoever he will, although he has neither eyes, nor ears, nor feet, nor hands; he is omniscient, omnipresent, almighty; he is the maker of all things, and the director and governor of the world; not, however, in his own person, but through the instrumentality of agents, whom he has created for the purpose.
That the Supreme Being exercises an immediate personal providential control over the affairs of the world, is, however, the doctrine of the Pauranik school; but it is the progeny of another doctrine, which is also theirs, and theirs alone, the identity of some one personate and perceptible form--some one present deity with the Supreme. There is no difference of opinion with regard to the character of the Gods of Hindu mythology, of Brahmá , Vishnu, Siva, and the rest of the thirty-three millions of the host of heaven, at least in their own individualities. The most ignorant Hindu will tell you, that either of these, as considered per se, is an inperfect and finite creature; he is mighty, merely in contrast to the weakness of man; he is immortal only in relation to the shortness of human life. The Gods had a be
