Modern Religious movement India

Towards the close of 1912 Dr. W. Dougals Mackenzie, President of Hartford Theological seminary, Hartford, Conn., invited me to deliver, as Lamson Lecturer for 1913, a course of eight lectures on Modern Religious Movements in India. The subject was extremely attractive. It was clear that to bring these many movements together, arrange them in related groups, and set them forth as varying expressions of a great religious upheaval would be a far more illuminating piece of work than the description of them as units ever could be. But the difficulties involved in the proposed investigation were so great that it was only after much inward questioning as to whether I ought to dare the task that I decided to attempt it. The First difficult of the subject lies in the fact that the majority of these numerous and very varied movements, scattered over every part of India, have never been described before. In the case of a few of the more noteworthy, excellent monographs do exist.