ity. The religion of Confucius never attempted to make converts outside of China. Brahmanism never went beyond India. The system of Zoroaster was a Persian religion; that of Egypt was confined to the Valley of the Nile; that of Greece to the Hellenic race. But Buddhism was inflamed with the desire of bringing all mankind to a knowledge of its truths. Its ardent and successful missionaries converted multitudes in Nepaul, Thibet, Birmah, Ceylon, China, Siam, Japan; and in all these states its monasteries are to-day the chief sources of knowledge and centres of instruction to the people. It is idle to class such a religion as this with the superstitions which debase mankind. Its power lay in the strength of conviction which inspired its teachers; and that, again, must have come from the sight of truth, not the belief in error.

§ 4. Leading Doctrines of Buddhism.

What, then, are the doctrines of Buddhism? What are the essential teachings of the Buddha and his disciples? Is it a system, as we are so often told, which denies God and immortality? Has atheism such a power over human hearts in the East? Is the Asiatic mind thus in love. with eternal death? Let us try to discover.

The hermit of Sakya, as we have seen, took his departure from two profound convictions, the evil of perpetual change, and the possibility of something permanent. He might have used the language of the Book of Ecclesiastes, and cried, "Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!" The profound gloom of that wonderful book is based on the same course of thought as that of the Buddha, namely, that everything goes round and round in a circle; that nothing moves forward; that there is no new thing under the sun; that the sun rises and sets, and rises again; that the wind blows north and south, and east and west, and then returns according to its circuits. Where can rest be found? where peace? where any certainty? Siddârtha was young; but he saw age approaching. He was in health; but he knew that sick

ness and death were lying in wait for him. He could not escape from the sight of this perpetual round of growth and decay, life and death, joy and woe. He cried out, from the depths of his soul, for something stable, permanent, real.

Again, he was assured that this emancipation from change and decay was to be found in knowledge. But by knowledge he did not intend the perception and recollection of outward facts, - not learning. Nor did he mean speculative knowledge, or the power of reasoning. He meant intuitive knowledge, the sight of eternal truth, the perception of the unchanging laws of the universe. This was a knowledge which was not to be attained by any merely intellectual process, but by moral training, by purity of heart and life. Therefore he renounced the world, and went into the forest, and became an anchorite.

But just at this point he separated himself from the Brahmans. They also were, and are, believers in the value of mortification, abnegation, penance. They had their hermits in his day. But they believed in the value of penance as accumulating merit. They practised selfdenial for its own sake. The Buddha practised it as a means to a higher end, - emancipation, purification, intuition. And this end he believed that he had at last attained. At last he saw the truth. He became "wide awake." Illusions disappeared; the reality was before him. He was the Buddha, the MAN WHO KNEW.

Still he was a man, not a God. And here again is another point of departure from 'Brahmanism. In that system, the final result of devotion was to become absorbed in God. The doctrine of the Brahmans is divine absorption; that of the Buddhists, human development. In the Brahmanical system, God is everything and man nothing. In the Buddhist, man is everything and God nothing. Here is its atheism, that it makes so much of man as to forget God. It is perhaps "without God in the world," but it does not deny him. It accepts the doctrine of the three worlds, the eternal world of absolute being; the celestial world of the gods, Brahma, Indra, Vischnu, Siva; and the finite world, consisting of indi

vidual souls and the laws of nature. Only it says, of the world of absolute being, Nirvana, we know nothing. That is our aim and end; but it is the direct opposite to all we know. It is, therefore, to us as nothing. The celestial world, that of the gods, is even of less moment to us. What we know are the everlasting laws of nature, by obedience to which we rise, disobeying which we fall, by perfect obedience to which we shall at last obtain Nirvana, and rest forever.

To the mind of the Buddha, therefore, the world consisted of two orders of existence, - souls and laws. He saw an infinite multitude of souls, -in insects, animals, men, - and saw that they were surrounded by inflexible laws, the laws of nature. To know these and to obey

them, this was emancipation.

The fundamental doctrine of Buddhism, taught by its founder and received by all Buddhists without exception, in the North and in the South, in Birmah and Thibet, in Ceylon and China, is the doctrine of the four sublime truths, namely:

1. All existence is evil, because all existence is subject to change and decay.

2. The source of this evil is the desire for things which are to change and pass away.

3. This desire, and the evil which follows it, are not inevitable; for if we choose we can arrive at Nirvana, when both shall wholly cease.

4. There is a fixed and certain method to adopt, by pursuing which we attain this end, without possibility of failure.

These four truths are the basis of the system. They are: 1st, the evil; 2d, its cause; 3d, its end; 4th, the way of reaching the end.

Then follow the eight steps of this way, namely:1. Right belief, or the correct faith.

2. Right judgment, or wise application of that faith to life.

3. Right utterance, or perfect truth in all that we say and do.

4. Right motives, or proposing always a proper end and aim.

sin.

5. Right occupation, or an outward life not involving

6. Right obedience, or faithful observance of duty.

7. Right memory, or a proper recollection of past conduct.

8. Right meditation, or keeping the mind fixed on permanent truth.

After this system of doctrine follow certain moral commands and prohibitions, namely, five, which apply to all men, and five others which apply only to the novices or the monks. The five first commandments are: 1st, do not kill; 2d, do not steal; 3d, do not commit adultery; 4th, do not lie; 5th, do not become intoxicated. The other five are: 1st, take no solid food after noon; 2d, do not visit dances, singing, or theatrical representations; 3d, use no ornaments or perfumery in dress; 4th, use no luxurious beds; 5th, accept neither gold nor silver.

All these doctrines and precepts have been the subject of innumerable commentaries and expositions. Everything has been commented, explained, and elucidated. Systems of casuistry as voluminous as those of the Fathers of the Company of Jesus, systems of theology as full of minute analysis as the great Summa Totius Theologia of St. Thomas, are to be found in the libraries of the monasteries of Thibet and Ceylon. The monks have their Golden Legends, their Lives of Saints, full of miracles and marvels. On this simple basis of a few rules and convictions has arisen a vast fabric of metaphysics. Much of this literature is instructive and entertaining. Some of it is profound. Baur, who had made a special study of the intricate speculations of the Gnostics, compares them with "the vast abstractions of Buddhism."

§ 5. The Spirit of Buddhism Rational and Humane.

Ultimately, two facts appear, as we contemplate this system, first, its rationalism; second, its humanity.

It is a system of rationalism. It appeals throughout to human reason. It proposes to save man, not from a future but a present hell, and to save him by teach

The

ing. Its great means of influence is the sermon. Buddha preached innumerable sermons; his missionaries went abroad preaching. Buddhism has made all its conquests honorably, by a process of rational appeal to the human mind. It was never propagated by force, even when it had the power of imperial rajas to support it. Certainly, it is a very encouraging fact in the history of man, that the two religions which have made more converts than any other, Buddhism and Christianity, have not depended for their success on the sword of the conqueror or the frauds of priestcraft, but have gained their victories in the fair conflict of reason with reason. We grant that Buddhism has not been without its superstitions and its errors; but it has not deceived, and it has not persecuted. In this respect it can teach Christians a lesson. Buddhism has no prejudices against those who confess another faith. The Buddhists have founded no Inquisition; they have combined the zeal which converted. kingdoms with a toleration almost inexplicable to our Western experience. Only one religious war has darkened their peaceful history during twenty-three centuries, that which took place in Thibet, but of which we know little. A Siamese told Crawford that he believed all the religions of the world to be branches of the true religion. A Buddhist in Ceylon sent his son to a Christian school, and told the astonished missionary, “I respect Christianity as much as Buddhism, for I regard it. as a help to Buddhism." MM. Huc and Gabet converted no Buddhist in Tartary and Thibet, but they partially converted one, bringing him so far as to say that he considered himself at the same time a good Christian and a good Buddhist.

Buddhism is also a religion of humanity. Because it lays such stress on reason, it respects all men, since all possess this same gift. In its origin it broke down all castes. All men, of whatever rank, can enter its priesthood. It has an unbounded charity for all souls, and holds it a duty to make sacrifices for all. One legend tells us that the Buddha gave his body for food to a starved tigress, who could not nurse her young through