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CHAPTER XVI
THE EMPTY HEART OF JAINISM The more one studies Jainism, the more one is struck with the pathos of its empty heart. The Jaina believe strongly in the duty of forgiving others, and yet have no hope of forgiveness from a Higher Power for themselves. They shrink from sin and take vows to guard against it, but know of no dynamic force outside themselves that could enable them to keep those vows. They see before them an austere upward path of righteousness, but know of no Guide to encourage and help them along that difficult way.
A scholar-saint once summed up the Christian faith by saying that the personal friendship of Jesus Christ our Lord was that gift which God became incarnate to bestow on every man who sought it. It is this personal friendship with the Incarnate Son of God which is the great gift that Christianity has to offer to the Jaina. Already, with their power of hero-worship and their intense love of all that is gentle, long-suffering and loving, the Jaina cannot but be attracted to Him. It is perhaps easier for a Jaina than it is for us to appreciate the wonderful portrait of Himself which Christ drew in those rules for happiness which we call the Beatitudes; for, while approving of the Ten Command. ments, to which in many respects their own rules bear a strong resemblance, it is to the Beatitudes that they are specially attracted, since these meet their faith at its highest and yet point out a still higher way.
The younger Jaina are worried by the old ascetic ideal that is placed before them. They feel, even when they can hardly express it, that the ideal needed for modern life is the development, not the negation, of personality; they
