528 TOTAL PERISHABLENESS."

UNSUBSTANTIAL FLUX.

proceeded calmly to explain a doubt whether the vast frame of the world has any intelligence indwelling of sufficient activity to have the care of governing and ordering. I must not quite say you took away self-consciousness; but, coming as near to that as possible, you took away design, or meaning, and so destroyed that which gives the laws of combination to material forms, and even existence to their primary particles. It seems acknowledged, that such a conception of passiveness in Deity affects your notions of the life to be expected hereafter. For it takes away clear individuality, and leaves a breathless absorption. So it must, I apprehend, in moral questions take away the clear boundaries of right and wrong; and if any one were speculative enough to care about pushing it into consequences respecting the material world, it would be found to make all existence uncertain. So that, I suspect, the Brahmanical reproach of 'total perishableness*' had more meaning against the Bauddha doctrines than at first sight appears. For you do resolve the universe into a vast ocean, as you said, or rather a flux of generation and perishing, in which existence is connected with intelligence; but intelligence has no governing design, and becomes either passively observant, or else as blind and objectless a force as if it were material: and so all the laws which express a Divine meaning, and give the world and all that is therein its form, or which give direction to human life, and stability to virtue or penalty to crime, or warrant to our souls for the expectation of an abiding individuality hereafter, are swept away in the whirl of a blind and remorseless revolution, without beginning or end. This is indeed a 'total perishableness,' and opens a dreary prospect. Supposing then such were the doctrine which Sákya preached, I cannot so far call him a deliverer. Even if, as you imagine, he wrought miracles, they are not credentials from a moral Governor of the world, for they do not lead to one, and you do not acknowledge one who might have caused them; but are only strange products of this Nature,

* See above, pp. 8, 9.

BUDDHISM NOT A DIVINE REVELATION.

us no message.

529

which you say expresses no design, and therefore they convey The very contents of your doctrine then seem to negative the possibility of its being a Divine Revelation. But it must be added, that the processes of nature are in fact uniform enough for things so extraordinary as what are called miracles to require no common attestation. Whereas such as you appeal to, mixed up with legends and fables, and recorded in books written, many of them, after a long interval of time, have even less proof than we require in common history, and tell more against the credibility of the story, than for the truth of the doctrine. As to Sákya, let us honour what was good in him. Probably his success was due to his goodness, and to the dim awe which in an ignorant age invested whatever belonged to him with more than human dignity. But his deliverance of men from a sacerdotal yoke was temporary; it has even passed away in itself; and if you would now restore it, which might be to his true honour, still it would be temporal. But in the sad transitoriness of the world, which Sákya lamented, and with our better souls hungering and thirsting within us for something more durable, our deliverance must be an eternal one, if it is to be the bread of life. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil must be our prayer to Him whom we can call Saviour. Again, Shew us the Father is a cry which the better nature of mankind must offer with hope to its teacher. Nor can we feed on the prospect of breathlessness; but each man desires a Redeemer of his life, of whom he can say, Whom I shall see for myself, and not another. Nor must the Spirit which helps us be called void*; for it is not a mere emptiness of earthy, but a fulness of heavenly things, such as love, joy, peace, and hope full of immortality, which we must seek from One who can uphold our steps in life. It is no blame to the man Sákya, that he fell short of giving these things, which were not his to give; but such a salvation of the soul from sin in all its burthen and stain, and such a vision through the open gates of heaven of a perpetual Helper

See p. 10.

34

M. P.

530

PRACTICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

of our souls, is what mankind need, and such has been wrought for us by Jesus, the heavenly Messenger and Word of God. In Him the Divine Mind has become vocal; and so He has brought us to a Creator and Lawgiver of all worlds, and a righteous Judge, but yet an eternal Saviour. Not from His own wrath, so much as from the evil which estranged us from Him, and from breach of the immutable laws against which our faithlessness would dash itself, He ever rejoices to deliver those who call upon Him. Our sacred books which record this revelation of the Word of God made man, have all the characteristics which you thought might suit a Divine message. They are full of humane sentiment, not in formal theories, but brought out in simple precepts, which tell upon every man's life, and exemplified (as we see) in the conduct of those who utter them. Their doctrine is deep, since it opens mysteries which no speculation can exhaust, yet plain so far that children can act upon it. They bring before our eyes the first teachers of the faith of Christ working wonders in stirring men's minds, and throwing a new force into human motives on the side of good. Instead of doing violence, Christ and His followers suffered it. Yet they prevailed by the power of a Truth, which having every human element of weakness, shewed its strength to be Divine. Nor did the life thus infused into the world cease in any generation. Even now, the same Spirit of God which took possession of Christ's disciples with a wonder-working power, finds an echo in the hearts of thousands both simple and wise, and puts forth in their lives a perpetual witness, that their faith is wellgrounded in an ever present Helper. Thus Christ has done, and is doing in the world what Sákya attempted. One might say that Buddhism went before Christianity as a sort of rude prophecy of the methods by which Truth should conquer, or as a tentative groping of mankind in the direction in which God was about to open for them a new and living way. You have noticed the resemblances; but do not forget the differences. Remember that we invite you to worship the living God; we

FINAL APPEAL TO BUDDHIST SPEAKER.

531

shew you in Christ the way of coming to Him, and promise you the help of His holy breathing to animate you in treading it. Especially such help will accompany your efforts in proportion as you become familiar with the life of Jesus, and have your faith in the God whom He reveals strengthened by the witness of His resurrection. The first thing we should do, as Christians, would be to teach your children to read. Will you so far join us? Then give them any books you have most wholesome. But if your literature contains none so true to history, or so prophetic to the heart of eternal things, then try the effect of our sacred writings, which teach all the good you have, and superadd higher truths, with clearer warrants, and a life of their own. By the Divine blessing on such means I should hope for a purer development of intelligence than the countries which own your doctrine have ever yet seen. It will be something gained, if you only discard your relics, throw your idols to the moles and the bats, and revive your old doctrine, that the law of Heaven should pervade the whole congregation of the people; but if you come so far, I prophesy you will not stop there; for experience of the truth of Christ so far will lead you on to embrace thankfully the whole of the salvation which He offers you for this life, and that which is to come. I speak, however, more modestly than perhaps I ought; since it is only of your own freewill that you can be persuaded to accept the blessings which God offers you. It is your loss if you reject, and your infinite gain if you believe."

"Probably the Saugata will have no objection," here Sadananda interposed, "to accept your doctrine of soul as distinct from the material world, and as surviving at least the present forms of things, if not their primary atoms; for so far you countenance somewhat the distinction he admits between intelligence and nature. The notion, however, which he entertains of an extreme quietude as the proper attribute of Deity, and the correspondent apathy which he consistently regards as the highest goal to be reached by the human intelligence, will make him

532

SANKHYA CONCEPTION OF PROGRESS.

slow to admit your doctrine of an abiding individuality as the necessary destiny of every immortal soul. In this respect then I am able to approach you more nearly; for I conceive our souls to have each its personal being, and to be free from danger of extinction. I can also agree with you so far as to think a large accession to our knowledge may be derivable from your sacred records, and I think it reasonable to study them. But it is not yet clear to me that they have not much of that character of temporariness, which I have ventured to ascribe to our Indian scriptures or Sástras in general. You would not, I suppose, permit me to say, that there is something popular and economic in many of their teachings; though indeed Christians admit that their great Teacher spoke many things in parables, and I do not see why some things intended perhaps as parables, and so understood by some, may not have been innocently taken as literal by others; but at any rate you admit a just distinction between the religious element in any sacred books and the natural framework of human associations and of limitations to the knowledge of any particular age. Even if you were unwilling to draw such a distinction, it would necessarily follow from what you have said of the nature of that Truth which is properly Divine, or which saves the soul. For the Holy Spirit, you said, teaches men what concerns the being of God, and their own relations to Him, their falling from Him by sin into all evil, and their need of being restored, as well as the fact of such redemption. Nor have I ever heard of any devout person's anywhere holding, that men are more likely to obtain everlasting bliss from having the most exact knowledge of commonplace facts, whether ancient or modern. But if a particular kind of knowledge does not save men, its absence cannot ruin them; nor can it therefore be a just argument against the value of any sacred writings. But I confess myself to go somewhat farther in the same direction. It appears to me that religion itself admits of improvement. Hence all our school contend that things even in the Vedas are temporary, or even blameable; such as the in