Faith,
Hope
and Love. The Jaina religion enshrines no Faith in a supreme Deity; but for the Christian the dark problems of sin and suffering are lit up by his faith in the character and power of God, which ensure the ultimate triumph of righteousness.
Hope to the Jaina is almost a meaningless word: he has hope neither for his own future, overcast as it is by the shadow of innumerable rebirths, nor for that of his religion, which will, he believes, in its due season perish from off the earth. To the Christian, on the other hand, his present circumstances and his future are alike bathed in the golden sunshine of hope, so that hopefulness may be said to be the very centre of the Christian creed and the foundation of its joy. No evil can befall the man in this life who with Dante has learnt that in God's will is our peace; and even in the presence of death he is sustained by the living hope[1] of a glorious future assured to him by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
As to the future of his faith, he waits with unswerving confidence the fulfilment of the magnificent śloka:
'The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.'[2]
But it is the third jewel, Love, that most clearly distinguishes the Christian from the Jaina ideal. To the Jaina, love to a personal God would be an attachment that could only bind him faster to the cycle of rebirth. It is a thing that must be rooted out at all costs, even as Gautama tore the love for his master Mahāvīra out of his heart. But to Christians love is the fulfilling of the law, and it is in its light that they tread the upward path; for it is through love that they see the form of their guide, and 'with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into the same image from glory to glory'.
Such is the greater Tri-ratna that Christ is holding in His pierced hands and which He offers to the Jaina to-day.
