Buddhism is also humane in spirit, and therein lay the cause of its wonderful success. In its origin it was a protest against the power of the Brahmanic priesthood. It broke down all castes by asserting the doctrine of human equality, and by allowing any one wishing to lead a holy life to become a priest. It displays an unbounded charity for all souls, and considers it a duty to make sacrifices for all. Said the Buddha: "Not from birth does one become a Vasala (slave), not from birth does one become a Brahman. By bad conduct does one become a Vasala, by good conduct does one become a Brahman." One legend says that the Buddha gave his body for food to a starving tigress, which was too weak to nurse her young. An incident is on record concerning the Buddha, who asked a woman of low caste for water, and who, when she expressd surprise, said: "Give me drink, and I will give you truth." The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which applies directly to all living creatures, has exerted a wonderful influence in softening the manners of the Mongol nations, whose history has not been filled with constant wars and bloodshed as has the history of Christian and other nations.

The commandment not to kill is closely related with the doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, which is one of the leading doctrines of Buddhism, as well as of Brahmanism. Buddhism has abolished all human and animal sacrifices; and its altars, free from innocent blood, are crowned only with flowers and leaves. likewise teaches a practical humanity consisting of good actions. It made it the duty of children to obey and honor their

to forgive their enemies, to return good for evil, to do unto others as they would have others do unto them, to be kind to the sick and the poor and the sorrowing. It diffused a spirit of charity abroad which encompassed the life of the lowest, as well as that of the highest. All the priests of Buddhism are supported by daily alms. It is a duty of Buddhists to be hospitable to strangers, to establish hospitals for the sick and the poor, and even for sick animals, to plant shade trees and to erect houses for travelers.

Mr. Malcolm, the Baptist missionary, says that as he sat down to rest one day in a small village in Burmah, a woman brought a nice mat for him to lie on. Another brought some cool water for him, while a man brought him a half dozen good oranges. None expected or desired the least reward, but went away, leaving him to his repose. He says: "None can ascend the river without being struck with the hardihood, skill, energy, and good humor of the Burmese boatmen. In point of temper and morality, they are infinitely superior to the boatmen of our Western waters. In my various trips, I have seen no quarrel nor heard a hard word."

Mr. Malcolm says further: "Many of these people have never seen a white man before, but I am constantly struck with their politeness. They desist from anything on the slightest intimation; never crowd around to be troublesome; and if on my showing them my watch or pencil-case, or anything which particularly attracts them, there are more than can get a sight the outer ones stand aloof and wait till their turn comes .

"I saw no intemperance in Burmah, though an intoxicating liquor is made easily of the juice of a palm.

"A man may travel from one end of the kingdom to the other without money, feeding and lodging as well as the people."

"I have seen thousands together, for hours, on public occasions, rejoicing in all

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"During my whole residence in the country I never saw an indecent act or immodest gesture in man or woman. have seen hundreds of men and women bathing, and no immodest or careless act. . "Children are treated with great kindness, not only by the mother but by the father, who, when unemployed, takes the young child in his arms, and seems pleased to attend to it, while the mother cleans the rice or sits unemployed at his side. I have as often seen fathers caressing female infants as male. A widow with male and female children is more likely to be sought in marriage than if she has none.

"Children are almost as reverent to parents as among the Chinese. The aged are treated with great care and tenderness, and occupy the best places in all assemblies."

According to Saint-Hilaire, the Buddhist morality is one of endurance, patience, submission and abstinence, instead of one of action, energy or enterprise. It is based on love for all things, every animal being possibly our relative. The virtues of Buddhists are to love their enemies, to offer their lives for animals, to abstain from even defensive warfare, to govern themselves, to shun vices, to obey superiors, to reverence age, to provide food and shelter for men and animals, to dig wells and plant trees, to despise no religion, to show no intolerance and not to persecute. Polygamy, though tolerated, is not sanctioned. Monogamy generally prevails in Ceylon, Siam and Burmah; but is less prevalent in Thibet and Mongolia. Buddhism affords women better treatment than any other Oriental religion.

Buddhism has regular priests but no secular ones; and all its clergy are monks, who take the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, as did the Christian monks of the middle ages. The vows of the Buddhists are not irrevocable, and they can be relinquished at any time, and return into the world if they desire to do so. The first Roman Catholic missionaries who met the Buddhist priests were struck with wonder at

of Buddhism and those of Roman Catholi cism, and thought that Satan had been mock. ing their sacred rites. Father Bury, a Portuguese missionary, on beholding Chinese bonzes tonsured, using rosaries, praying in an unknown language, and kneeling before images, exclaimed in astonishment: "There is not a piece of dress, not a sacerdotal function, not a ceremony of the court of Rome, which the Devil has not copied in this country." Mr. Davis, an English authority, alludes to "the celibacy of the Buddhist clergy, and the monastic life of the societies of both sexes; to which might be added their strings of beads, their manner of chanting prayers, their incense, and their candles." Mr. Medhurst, another English authority, speaks of the images of a virgin, called the "queen of heaven," having an infant in her arms, and holding a cross. Confession of sins is practiced regularly. Father Huc, the French missionary, says of the Buddhists in China. Thibet and Tartary: "The cross, the miter, the dalmatica, the cope, which the Grand Lamas wear on their journeys, or when they are performing some ceremony out of the temple-the service with double choirs, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer suspended from five chains, and which you can open or close at pleasure-the benedictions given by the lamas by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful-the chaplet, ecclesiastical celibacy, religious retirement, the worship of the saints, the fasts, the processions, the litanies, the holy water -all these are analogies between the Buddhists and ourselves." He might have also said that in Thibet is the Dalai Lama (Grand Lama), a sort of Buddhist Pope.

The Roman Catholic missionaries next thought that the Buddhists had learned these customs from the Nestorian missionaries who visited China in the early centuries of the Christian era. But Wilson translated plays from written works before the time of Christ, in which Buddhist monks appear as mendicants. The worship of relics is no less ancient. Fergusson describes topes, or shrines of relics, of exceeding antiquity, in

India, Ceylon, Burmah and Java; many of them belonging to the time of King Asoka, the great Buddhist sovereign who ruled all India about B. C. 250, and in whose reign Buddhism was made the state religion of India and held its third church council.

The ancient Buddhist architecture, very curious and some of it very elegant, includes topes, rock-cut temples and monasteries. Some of the topes are monolithic columns, over forty feet high, and having ornamented capitals; while others are enormous domes of brick and stone, containing sacred relics. The tooth of Buddha was once preserved in a magnificent shrine in India, but was taken to Ceylon in A. D. 311, where it yet remains an object of universal reverence. It is a piece of ivory or bone two inches long, and is kept in six cases, the largest being of solid silver, five feet high. The other cases are inlaid with rubies and precious stones. Ceylon likewise has the "left collar-bone relic," in a bell-shaped tope, fifty feet high, and the thorax bone, in a tope erected by a Hindoo rajah, B. C. 250. Besides these topes there are two others, which were afterwards built, the last being eighty cubits high. The Sanchi tope is the finest in India, and is a solid stone dome, one hundred and six feet in diameter and forty-two feet high, with a basement and terrace having a colonnade, now fallen, of sixty pillars, with elegantlycarved stone railing and gateway.

The numerous rock-cut temples of the Buddhists in India are of great antiquity. Fergusson believes that over nine hundred yet remain, most of which are within the Presidency of Bombay. Many of these date back two centuries before Christ. They resemble the earliest Roman Catholic churches in form. They are excavated out of solid rock, and have a nave and side aisies, ending in an apse, or semi-dome, round which the aisle is carried. One of the excavated rock temples at Karli, built in this style, is one hundred and twentysix feet long and forty-five feet wide, having fifteen elegantly-carved columns on each side, which separate the nave from the

aisles. The façade of this temple is likewise profusely ornamented, and has a large open window to light the inside, below a beautiful gallery of rood loft.

The numerous rock-cut monasteries of the Buddhists in India have now been deserted for centuries. Between seven and eight hundred are known to remain, most of which were excavated between B. C. 200 and A. D. 500. Buddhist monks at that early period, as well as at the present time, took the three vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, which are taken by the members of Roman Catholic orders. Besides this, all the Buddhist priests are mendicants. They shave their heads, wear a friar's robe tied round the waist with a rope, and beg from house to house, carrying their wooden bowls for boiled rice. The old monasteries of India have chapels and cells for the monks; but the largest could accommodate only thirty or forty; while one monastery in Thibet visited by MM. Huc and Gabet (the lamasery of Kounboum) is occupied by four thousand lamas. The structure of these monasteries clearly proves that the Buddhist monkish system is far too ancient to have been adopted from the Christian system.

But while Buddhism thus resembles Romanism in its outward forms, it manifests the spirit of Protestantism. In Asia the human mind protested in the interest of mankind against the oppression of priestridden Brahmanism, as the European reformers of the sixteenth century revolted against the tyranny of the Church of Rome, Brahmanism established a system of salvation by sacraments, but Buddhism revolted and founded a doctrine of personal salvation by teaching. Brahmanism was the more spiritual, as it made God everything, this world nothing; Buddhism was the more rationalistic, as it made this world everything and ignored Deity. Brahmanism is a system of fixed castes; Buddhism a system wherein the doctrine of individual freedom is asserted. Brahmanism considers the body as the soul's enemy; Buddhism accepts the laws of nature and is a religion of humanity as well as of devotion. Buddhism

doctrine of the transmigration of the souls of those who do not lead a correct life into other forms of animal existence until the soul is purified, when rest is obtained, according to Brahmanism, by absorption into the Divine Spirit of the universe, and according to Buddhism by entering Nirvana. Though both systems have the same aim, that of escaping the miseries and changes of existence into the absolute rest of eternity, the Brahman thinks this repose can only be obtained by mental submission and by a passive reception of what is taught by a priestcaste, while the Buddhist believes that this eternal rest can only come through a free obedience of the Divine laws. Both systems consider knowledge essential to salvation.

M. Saint-Hilaire has summed up the good and evil of Buddhism thus: Its founder proposed himself to save the human race. He did not indulge in the subtle philosophy of the Brahmans; he did not promise his followers riches, pleasures, conquests or power; but he invited them to accept salvation by means of virtue, knowledge and self-denial. We do not find such noble appeals in the Vedas or the other Brahmanic works. The Buddha's greatest glory was the unlimited charity for man which filled his soul. devoted his life to teach man and lead him in the right way. His law was a law of grace for all. Sakya-muni, the Buddha, therefore aimed at a universal religion. viewed man's life, regardless of rank and class, as sorrowful. He considered all alike poor and needy, and invited to come unto him all that labor and are heavy laden, offering them rest. He desired to cure the diseases of the life of the human race.

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humility and forgiveness of injuries. He abhorred falsehood, and reverenced truth. He forbade slander and gossip. He taught respect for parents, family, life and home.

The teaching of Gautama the Buddha, like that of Jesus the Christ, has been corrupted with doctrines which he never taught; and the forms of worship adopted in different countries vary, but principally consist in adoration of the statues of the Buddha and of his relics, he being regarded by them as that which any person may become by the four sublime truths and the ten commandments. Buddhism as a philosophy does not deny God; it simply ignores Him, says nothing about him. Buddhism as a religion is a polytheism and an idolatry, whose millions of votaries believe in a multitude of gods.

We have observed resemblances between the Buddha's teaching of charity and mercy and that of Christ's, as the fruit of the loving natures of both. Like Christianity, Buddhism was driven out of its birth-place.

But M. Saint Hilaire observes that Buddhism never yet founded a good social state or a solitary good government. It failed in India, its native land, and never got a permanent hold of any Aryan race. The gloomy character of Buddhism, which looks upon all existence as an evil, with the simple motive of doing right for the sake of future reward by deliverance from a sad existence, has a corrupting influence upon duty; the idea disappears, and skepticism follows. "God is nothing; man is nothing; life is nothing; death is nothing; eternity is nothing. Hence the profound sadness of Buddhism. To its eye all existence is an evil, and the only hope is to escape from time into eternity or into nothing-as you may choose to interpret Nirvana. While Buddhism makes God, or the good, and heaven, to be equivalent to nothing, it intensifies and exaggerates the evil. Though heaven is a blank, hell is a very solid reality. It is present and future too. Everything in the thousand hells of Buddhism is painted as vividly as in the hell of Dante. God has disappeared from the Universe, and in his place is only the inexorable law, which