'Far off Divine event

To which the whole creation moves.'

Having said so much, we are bound to pay our tribute to the loftiness of much of Buddha's teaching. We can admit, without fear of misunderstanding, that in regard even to points of duty which in the common opinion have been satisfactorily treated by Christianity alone, the Buddhist ideas do not fall one whit short of the Christian. The Buddhist precepts with regard to patience under injuries, the cultivation of unselfishness and of sympathy, the duty of endeavouring to relieve the distresses of others, of temperance, soberness, and chastity, of resignation, of bridling the tongue and the temper, of almsgiving and the practice of works of mercy, of the avoidance of any ostentation of goodness, even of repentance and acknowledgment of sin, are, when regarded on the human side alone, unsurpassed by those of Christianity; for in truth, with minor differences of detail, both teach the same thing.

Want of space forbids us to quote at length from the Buddhist scriptures in illustration of the excellence of its teaching. Examples may, however, be found in Dr. Rhys Davids manual of Buddhism, forming one of the excellent series of hand-books on Non-Christian Religious Systems published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. We content ourselves with citing a few verses from Professor Max Müller's translation of the Dhammapada, selected rather in illustration of some by-ways of Buddhist thought, than of the general system of morality:

V. 19. 'The thoughtless man, even if he can recite a large portion of the law but is not a doer of it, has no share in the priesthood, but is like a cowherd counting the cows of others.'

V. 20. The follower of the law, even if he can recite only a small portion of the law, but, having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness, possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind, he caring for nothing in this world, or that to come, has indeed a share in the priesthood.'

In these verses we are reminded of the Epistle of S. James, while the special mention of recitation of the law recalls the wonderful powers of memory common amongst the learned Indians, both ancient and modern. The following verses sound like the echo of teaching to be found both in the Old and the New Testament on the government of the heart :—

6

V. 36. Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list. Thoughts well guarded bring happiness.'

V. 42. Whatever a hater may do to a hater, or an enemy to an enemy, a wrongly directed mind will do us greater mischief.'

Many of the verses present not only literary resemblances to those of the Proverbs of Solomon, but conceptions at least analogous of folly and wisdom. For example :—

V. 60. There is no companionship with a fool.'

V. 62. "These sons belong to me, and this wealth belongs to me"-with such thoughts is a fool tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; much less sons and wealth.'

V. 63. The fool who knows his foolishness is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.'

V. 64. If a fool be associated with a wise man even all his life, he will perceive the truth as little as a spoon perceives the taste of soup.'

V. 69. As long as the evil deed done does not bear fruit, the fool thinks it is like honey; but when it ripens then the fool suffers grief.'

In conclusion.-From the many striking resemblances that undoubtedly exist between Buddhism on the one hand and the teaching of sects, such as the Essenes, which preceded Christianity, and Christianity on the other, some writers have jumped hastily to the conclusion that the former was the source of the latter. A recent attempt to establish this inference is made in a book referred to above and entitled Buddha and Early Buddhism. The writer having, as he says, devoted nine years to the study of the subject, thinks himself qualified to put forward original views opposed to those of Burnouf, St. Hilaire, Professors Max Müller and Monier Williams, Dr. Rhys Davids, and, as he believes, almost every writer of note. Loud as is the trumpet-blast of the challenger, we do not imagine that writers of note will think it worth while to engage in serious combat with him. He has read widely on the subject, but, as it seems to us, with an entire absence of that discriminating judgment which would alone entitle him to be listened to when propounding original views. For example, he twice quotes S. Paul's words, 'preached to every creature under heaven,' in reference to the Gospel, in proof that the higher Buddhism and the higher Christianity are the same religion,' and that S. Paul thought so.1 Mr. Lillie's naïve confession as

1 See Buddha and Early Buddhism, by Arthur Lillie (late Regiment of Lucknow). London, 1881. Introduction, p. x, and pp. 217, 218. S. Paul's words are in Col. i. 23, not, as Mr. Lillie gives the reference both times, v. 3. Whether the Táoŋ Ty Kriσe of the Apostle be only an hyperbole, arising in this particular verse from the repeated use in the previous verses of the same or related expressions, or whether it have some mysterious fulness of meaning corresponding to the meaning of these expressions, it is quite certain that Mr. Lillie is egregiously mistaken.

to the prime source of his superior enlightenment with regard to the principles of early Buddhism, is of itself sufficient to destroy all credit for his work. To rely, as he does, upon the testimony of a nineteenth-century Nepalese Buddhist who, however learned, could know but little of the Western science of criticism, and could certainly not be impartial, for information as to original Buddhism, is an infallible method of arriving at wrong conclusions.

The best scholars, even those without bias in favour of any religion as revealed, have come to the conclusion that similarities such as those referred to above are not to be explained by the easy method of supposing a passage en bloc in ancient times of a set of religious ideas from India into Palestine. It is only by ignoring the totally different bases, and indeed the general architecture, so to say, of the two edifices of religious thought, that the resemblances of separate features are made to appear significant. A person ignorant of horticulture might suppose that apples and pears were descended from the same not very remote ancestral tree, but they belong to distinct species. Until post-Christian times, when missionaries may have furnished the channel by which some resemblances of ritual passed over into the ritualistic system of Northern Buddhism, the development of religion in the farther East and that of which Christianity was the outcome pursued their course independently of one another. We have only to recall to mind the grand conception of the Supreme Being and of His relation to His creatures-a conception which, though expanded and developed, continued essentially identical throughout the course of Biblical historyto assure ourselves that this was the case.

ART. VI. THE SALVATION ARMY.

1. Heathen England: being a Description of the utterly Godless Condition of the Vast Majority of the English Nation, and of the Establishment, Growth, System, and Success of an Army for its Salvation, consisting of Working People, under the Generalship of William Booth. Third Edition. (London, 1879.)

2. Aggressive Christianity.

By MRS. BOOTH.

(London,

1880.)

3. Our Story in 1881. (London, 1882.)

4. The War Cry, and Official Gazette of the Salvation Army. (Published Weekly.)

5. The Little Soldier: the Children's War Cry. (Published Weekly.)

ABOUT nine-and-thirty years ago, at Nottingham, an eagerhearted boy of fourteen, named William Booth, obtained permission of his father, who was a nominal Churchman, to leave the uninteresting Church service of those days, and seek a form of worship which might better please his fancy in a Wesleyan meeting-house. Here, according to the story, a year later he was 'converted;' and without delay, accompanied by two or three other boys who had lately passed through a similar experience, he threw himself ardently into religious work in the lower parts of the town, where he preached in all weathers indoors or out-of-doors. At the age of seventeen the boy was an accredited preacher among the Wesleyans, and would have passed on into their ministry, had not the doctors told him that in that case he would die in a twelvemonth. He still, however, persevered in preaching; and at the age of twenty-four, finding himself stronger, he was admitted to be a minister, though not among the Wesleyans, but in a sect called the Methodist New Connexion. Immediately after this occurrence, though formally appointed to a fixed station, he chose an irregular life of revival work, first in Guernsey, then in the Black Country, then in the North. The conversions' effected by him during this time, recorded and counted up in the strange fashion of those sectarians, rose to an imposing figure. But Mr. Booth's sect did not, for some reason or another, approve of this roving career, in spite of its success. He was for a few years tied down again to the charge of a congregation; and on his applying in 1861 for leave to resume once more the position of an ‘evangelist,' the application was refused. Mr. Booth felt that he was in no way bound to yield to such an authority. He left the New Connexion, as he had before left the Wesleyans and still earlier the Church, and betook himself to that paradise of revivalists, the county of Cornwall, as an unattached preacher.

After various fortunes, Mr. Booth's energies at last became concentrated upon East London. In the year 1865, which is considered the birth year of the Salvation Army, he happened to call at the office of The Christian newspaper, when he received an invitation to hold a week of preaching in a tent at Whitechapel.

'Here he saw the enormous population of utterly godless people which swarmed on every side; and feeling his heart strangely drawn out for their salvation, he resolved, in the strength of the Lord, to turn aside from those who in all directions throughout the country would have invited him to continue the work of an evangelist in their midst, and to spend the remainder of his life in endeavouring to christianize the millions of his countrymen who instead of inviting might be inclined to repel his labours.' i

Hitherto, though he had seen a good deal in the way of orthodox revivals among the sects, he 'had little knowledge of the way to get at those who lay outside the sphere of existing religious organizations.' He resolved boldly to take experience for his schoolmaster.

'He began by preaching in the open air upon a piece of land by the side of the Mile-End Road, where shows, shooting-ranges, petty dealers, and quack doctors rival each other in attracting the attention of the poor. In those days it was rather a novelty for any one to stand there statedly and regularly in all weathers to preach to the people. And this tall, dark stranger who came to talk to them all familiarly about their souls, using every passing event and every common proverb to pass along the line of their ordinary thoughts, bringing in great truths long forgotten if ever known, was a new wonder. -an attraction equal at any rate to Punch-and-Judy or the giant baby. . . . Men and women long burdened with sins followed him to the tent, and one after another fell down at the feet of Jesus, and sought and found mercy. These, rallying round their spiritual father in the open air, soon began by their singing and their simple relation of God's pardoning love to them to increase the general interest in the affair, and many who would have taken little notice of a mere preacher stood speechless and astounded to hear men, who had been notorious for their iniquity but a little while before, tell of the peace, and joy, and love, they now possessed.' 2

In the autumn Mr. Booth's tent was demolished by wind and wet. Then, after a short sojourn in the open air, the work found a home in an old dancing-saloon, afterwards in a low public-house, which was converted into a mission-hall. To this succeeded a large theatre, hired for Sunday use. Persons from all quarters of East London who had been converted in this theatre began to ask that similar operations might be set on foot in their own neighbourhoods. In Bethnal Green, Limehouse, Poplar, Canning Town, club-rooms, cellars, sheds, old abandoned chapels, an old factory, a back room behind a pigeon-shop, became centres of their missionary activity. Four years after the commencement in Whitechapel the plant. 2 Ibid. pp. 23, 24.

1 Heathen England, p. 23.