Islam Rediscovered
24. A Case of Discovery*
~ 410 ~
for the sake of my education. Arriving in Scotland, I
soon got into the society of some good Christian
men and women of an orthodox type, who began to
take great interest in me, and to express great
concern for the salvation of my soul. I used to visit
their houses and join in their prayer-meetings. Once
or twice I even attended some of the revivalistic
meetings then in vogue, and was greatly surprised
to see strong, bearded men bitterly weeping for
their sins, while scores of delicately-framed old
spinsters were carried away in fainting fits. The
emotional side of the Scotch character of which we
see so little in India, now stood revealed before me
in a most unequivocal manner. But however deep
and genuine my love and reverence for Christ was,
however sincere my admiration for the general drift
of his essential teachings, I could by no means
reconcile myself to two items of the orthodox creed:
(1) Atonement, and (2) Eternal Damnation. There
was also a Unitarian chapel in Edinburgh that I
occasionally attended, and though their religious
views and mine were very similar in some respects,
yet the general tone of the sermons delivered there
was somewhat too cold and sometimes too
rationalistic for my warm, oriental blood. In
