"Si notre foi diffÈre quant À la forme et aux dogmes, nos Âmes restent toujours d'accord sur un principe Éternel et divin."—George Sands.

An immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been deeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are called upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had within his experience and under his observation such an exceptional case as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age, has set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an all-compassionate Father—a Christian whose inner light has been so pure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal warfare has ever stained its radiance—he, I contend, has an almost insuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness and purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other religious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and salvation of humanity.

It is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however extensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has ever been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose itself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien belief.

A man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with deep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial of the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards the poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India, and with the yellow-robed and gentle religieux of Ceylon; he may have surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense stillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to vanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was that of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like apertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful fireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;—yet, in each and all of these experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in our own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to the unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a vision which had been restricted by prejudice.

Still more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence for a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in sacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior allegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of a correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly tend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St. Paul of "being all things to all men." To pave the way towards the acquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is the main object I have had in view in composing this small book.

It has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this direction than our own. "On the one hand, sectarian hatred and dogmatism almost obscure the great truths common to all mankind; on the other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much that used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the foundations of truth."

Some people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value to be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are working in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as specialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are possessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to the narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement in view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become exposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as final truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The fragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess no value except as constituent elements of the whole.

Others go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be fanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more rapidly consumed.

In any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy of the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at bottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are superficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the advantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral spheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of the obscure phases of religions lies in this—that, in so doing, our minds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and aspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly that all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude and idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and however mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of narrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.

When we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness, or, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can then proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and philosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists, we shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of development, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward on our several paths, not in antipathy to, but hand in hand with, those who make use of different modes of progression towards one identical goal.

Missionary propagandism, under these conditions, will have the same raison d'Être, and our cherished symbolisms will in no wise suffer. Holding this view, I have felt no misgivings as to the propriety of placing side by side, as it were, the historical and radiant figures of Jesus the Christ and Gotama the Buddha, and of indicating an analogy between the essential features of the two systems of religion which these great deliverers of a world on earth have fashioned and commended for the acceptance of their fellow creatures.

Indeed, Buddhism should occupy a very large place in the affections and admiration of all true Christians on account of the many points of resemblance discernible in the characters and gospels of Gotama and Jesus.

St. Augustine, the great vindicator of Christianity, clears the ground for an assimilation of the two systems. He writes: "For the thing in itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to the ancients, nor was wanting at any time, from the beginning of the human race until the time that Christ came into the flesh, from which the true religion which had previously existed began to be called Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion—not as having been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received this name."

KÖppen says: "As, from the standpoint of Buddhism, all men—nay, all beings—are brothers, children of one sin, sons of the same nonentity, thus all religions of the globe appear to it as related, as sprung from one source; all pursuing the same end, and arriving at the same goal. The religious views, creeds, etc., etc. ... of all nations, Churches, schools, sects, and parties, however diverse they may seem, are hence, according to the conception of the believing Buddhist, not alien, but inwardly akin. They are merely peculiar forms, modifications, obscurations, degenerations of the same truth—of one law, one faith, one redemption. For him there is only one doctrine and one Way; and all religions belong, in one way or another, to this doctrine, and are all on that Way."

Among the things that can never be shaken are the foundations of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, and other cognate religious systems. Here and there, perchance, a steeple may come down with a crash, a minaret may fall, a pagoda crumble into dust; but the foundation-stones, laid beneath the surface, buried in mystery, and encompassed by darkness, remain irremoveable, changeless, and eternal.

It is, then, in this brooding darkness which envelopes their occult sources that we must take our stand; and not until we have grown into and become one with the encircling gloom, and been subjectively steeped in it, can we hope to understand or pronounce a fair judgment upon what is the less obscure and objective.

The comparative study of religions requires approach with an open and receptive mind, and a large amount of intuitive sympathy with all. It cannot be fairly undertaken if the initial object of investigation is to mould the one or the other to the shape of personal fancy.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, a most interesting exponent of Buddhism in relation to Christianity, says that the study of an ancient religion is not philosophy, but pure history. This may be true, in a sense; but, at the same time, it is necessary that the records of the past should be studied in a philosophical and synthetic spirit, with an Impressionist rather than a pre-Raphaelite tendency. Mr. Lillie hardly makes due allowance for the measure of failure which must accompany all human efforts to do justice to a great idea, and perhaps overstrains the theory that literary and philological analysis have had their day, and that archÆology and history should now reign supreme.

In connection with the placing of too great a reliance upon the "letter" of venerated records, a warning—serious enough if we appropriate it to ourselves—has issued from the pen of the Rev. Spence Hardy, who, in a passage of his book, entitled Eastern Monachism (p. 166), emphasizes with tremendous force the precarious position of those who take their stand solely upon sacred books. "The priests of India," he writes, "are encompassed by weapons that may be wrested from their hands and used to their own destruction. When it is clearly proved to them that their venerated records contain absurdities and contradictions, they must of necessity conclude that their origin cannot have been divine; and, the foundations of the system being thus shaken, the whole mass must speedily fall, leaving only the unsightly ruin as a monument of man's folly, when he endeavours to form a religion from the feculence of his own corrupt heart or the fancies of his own perverted imagination."

It may be apposite here to demonstrate how far short of the Pauline standard the cultivated European critic falls, by referring to some remarks of the Rev. Prof. Bruce in one of his Gifford Lectures[A] of last year, in which he treats of Gotama's views concerning the moral order of the universe. Of the two leading doctrines of Buddhism, Karma is called by him "fantastic" and Nirvana "morbid"; and, not content with such a contemptuous dismissal of these remarkable conceptions, he proceeds to say: "The well-being of the race demanded warriors, brave in the field of battle against evil, not monks, immured in cloisters and passing their lives in poverty, wearing the yellow robe of a mendicant order."

This rhetorical flourish may have sounded very effective and convincing as a peroration, and have produced the desired result of clearing the lecturer from any possible imputation of sympathy with Buddhism, except as an ethical system of considerable excellence; but such a summing-up of Buddhism is neither more nor less than a throwing of dust in the eyes of beholders, and is, in my opinion, very far removed from the dispassionate survey one would expect from a Gifford Lecturer. Alighting on such a misrepresentation of his religious system, a Buddhist would naturally feel aggrieved, and his belief in our self-adopted reputation for fair-play all round might be rudely shaken.

"Karma" is undoubtedly one of the so-called mysteries of Buddhism; but is it in any sense more fantastic than any other religious mystery? Is this theory of the transmigration of character (as it has been somewhat loosely described) more fanciful in its conception than that of the transmigration of the soul, a "vaguely-apprehended, feebly-postulated ego," to a dim locality such as heaven? Then, again, it may be asked, what is there so objectionable in a quiet, unobtrusive resistance to evil, that it should prompt the lecturer to magnify the importance of a crude aggressiveness?

It is by no means true that Buddhist monks are usually immured in cloisters; they, in fact, move about freely as examples, within human limits, of the highest morality, and they chiefly occupy themselves (as in Burma) with the education of children.[B] General Forlong, in his Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions, says: "Gotama's religion widened from Jaino-Buddhism into one of work and duty towards his fellows; his instructions to the order of monks were to the following effect: that they were not to beg from door to door, but only to accept gifts in return for services performed; and this was their service—to be an example to all men."

Condemnation of these monks for passing their lives in poverty sounds strangely inappropriate coming from the lips of a Christian professor; and, as to the well-being of the race not demanding the wearing of yellow garments, one might reasonably ask if it demanded the wearing of a black gown. We must, in all fairness, I think, credit Gotama with possessing a large measure of that "Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

Sir Edwin Arnold, I believe, refers to the mysteries of Buddhism as "blank abstractions," but I do not suppose he regards them as more "blank" than the mysteries of other religions. All mysteries are, in a sense, blank abstractions, and the blanker they are the nearer the truth; and what religion is without them? It may be conceded, however, that such a conception as "Ultimate Reality" upon which to fall back in time of need might prove to some minds a more comfortless one than that presented by the "Compassionate Father" of the Christian God-idea. But even this Christian symbolism has an element of mystery in it.

Then there is the poetic phase of anthropomorphism, which is not altogether to be despised from an Æsthetic point of view. Such as the Mohammedan Allah, who is described with exquisite imagery in the Bostan of SÂdi as a beautiful cup-bearer at Sufistic banquets,

which recalls the anthropomorphic Deity of the Psalms:—

Another picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate Saviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure from the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of serpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father.

Dr. Paul Carus, in his preface to The Gospel of Buddha, says: "A comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and Buddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity, but will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential nature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions. It will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the cosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians and Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their faith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth."

The theological formation which has gradually developed into what may be called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached its limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying influences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious inquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface and observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages, given rise to the accretions.

The deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater perhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander is, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear that ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer be bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last disappear.

As it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry, "that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best consists with fertility."

Christianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features—"the metaphysical," "the ethical," and "the biographical." As the two latter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these systems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a consideration of their mystical relationship.

D. M. S.

Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh.
February, 1899.