soul, the eventual purification of his own; a something lost in
reflection, self-effaced, only the alter ego of the outer world.

For contemplation, not action, is the Far Oriental's ideal of life.
The repose of self-adjustment like that to which our whole solar

system is slowly tending as its death,--this to him appears, though
from no scientific deduction, the end of all existence. So he sits

and ponders, abstractly, vaguely, upon everything in general,
--synonym, alas, to man's finite mind, for nothing in particular,--

till even the sense of self seems to vanish, and through the
mist-like portal of unconsciousness he floats out into the vast

indistinguishable sameness of Nirvana's sea.
At first sight Buddhism is much more like Christianity than those of

us who stay at home and speculate upon it commonlyappreciate. As a
system of philosophy it sounds exceedingly foreign, but it looks

unexpectedly familiar as a faith. Indeed, the one religion might
well pass for the counterfeit presentment of the other. The

resemblance so struck the early Catholic missionaries that they felt
obliged to explain the remarkable similarity between the two.

With them ingenuous surprise instantly begot ingenious sophistry.
Externally, the likeness was so exact that at first they could not

bring themselves to believe that the Buddhist ceremonials had not
been filched bodily from the practices of the true faith. Finding,

however, that no known human agency had acted in the matter, they
bethought them of introducing, to account for things, a deus ex

machina in the shape of the devil. They were so pleased with this
solution of the difficulty that they imparted it at once with much

pride to the natives. You have indeed got, they graciously if
somewhat gratuitously informed them, the outwardsemblance of the

true faith, but you are in fact the miserable victims of an impious
fraud. Satan has stolen the insignia of divinity, and is now

masquerading before you as the deity; your god is really our devil,
--a recognition of antipodal inversion truly worthy the Jesuitical

mind!
Perhaps it is not matter for great surprise that they converted but

few of their hearers. The suggestion was hardly so diplomatic as
might have been expected from so generally astute a body; for it

could not make much difference what the all-presiding deity was
called, if his actions were the same, since his motives were beyond

human observation. Besides, the bare idea of a foreign bogus was
not very terrifying. The Chinese possessed too many familiar devils

of their own. But there was another and a much deeper reason, which
we shall come to later, why Christianity made but little headway in

the Far East.
But it is by no means in externals only that the two religions are

alike. If the first glance at them awakens that peculiar sensation
which most of us have felt at some time or other, a sense of having

seen all this before, further scrutiny reveals a deeper agreement
than merely in appearances.

In passing from the surface into the substance, it may be mentioned
incidentally that the codes of morality of the two are about on a

level. I say incidentally, for so far as its practice, certainly,
is concerned, it not its preaching, morality has no more intimate

connection with religion than it has with art or politics. If we
doubt this, we have but to examine the facts. Are the most religious

peoples the most moral? It needs no prolonged investigation to
convince us that they are not. If proof of the want of a bond were

required, the matter of truth-telling might be adduced in point.
As this is a subject upon which a slight misconception exists in the

minds of some evangelically persuaded persons, and because, what is
more generally relevant, the presence of this quality, honesty in

word and deed, has more than almost any other one characteristic
helped to put us in the van of the world's advance to-day, it may

not unfittingly be cited here.
The argument in the case may be put thus. Have specially religions

races been proportionally truth-telling ones? If not, has there been
any other cause at work in the development of mankind tending to

increase veracity? The answer to the first question has all the
simplicity of a plain negative. No such pleasing concomitance of

characteristics is observable to-day, or has been presented in the
past. Permitting, however, the dead past to bury its shortcomings

in oblivion, let us look at the world as we find it. We observe,
then, that the religious spirit is quite as strong in Asia as it is

in Europe; if anything, that at the present time it is rather
stronger. The average Brahman, Mahometan, or Buddhist is quite as

devout as the ordinary Roman Catholic or Presbyterian. If he is
somewhat less given to propagandism, he is not a whit less regardful

of his own salvation. Yet throughout the Orient truth is a thing
unknown, lies of courtesy being de rigueur and lies of convenience

de raison; while with us, fortunately, mendacity is generally
discredited. But we need not travel so far for proof. The same is

evident in less antipodal relations. Have the least religious
nations of Europe been any less truthful than the most bigoted? Was

fanatic Spain remarkable for veracity? Was Loyola a gentleman whose
assertions carried conviction other than to the stake? Were the

eminently mundane burghers whom he persecuted noted for a pious
superiority to fact? Or, to narrow the field still further, and scan

the circle of one's own acquaintance, are the most believing
individuals among them worthy of the most belief? Assuredly not.

We come, then, to the second point. Has there been any influence at
work to differentiate us in this respect from Far Orientals?

There has. Two separate causes, in fact, have conduced to the same
result. The one is the development of physical science; the other,

the extension of trade. The sole object of science being to
discover truth, truth-telling is a necessity of its existence.

Professionally, scientists are obliged to be truthful. Aliter of a
Jesuit.

So long as science was of the closet, its influence upon mankind
generally was indirect and slight; but so soon as it proceeded to

stalk into the street and earn its own living, its veracious
character began to tell. When out of its theories sprang inventions

and discoveries that revolutionized every-day affairs and changed
the very face of things, society insensibly caught its spirit.

Man awoke to the inestimable value of exactness. From scientists
proper, the spirit filtered down through every stratum of education,

till to-day the average man is born exact to a degree which his
forefathers never dreamed of becoming. To-day, as a rule, the more

intelligent the individual, the more truthful he is, because the
more innately exact in thought, and thence in word and action.

With us, to lie is a sign of a want of cleverness, not of an excess
of it.

The second cause, the extension of trade, has inculcated the same
regard for veracity through the pocket. For with the increase of

business transactions in both time and space, the telling of the
truth has become a financial necessity. Without it, trade would

come to a standstill at once. Our whole mercantile system, a modern
piece of mechanism unknown to the East till we imported it thither,

turns on an implicit belief in the word of one's neighbor. Our
legal safeguards would snap like red tape were the great bond of

mutual trust once broken. Western civilization has to be truthful,
or perish.

And now for the spirits of the two beliefs.
The soul of any religion realizes in one respect the Brahman idea of

the individual soul of man, namely, that it exists much after the
manner of an onion, in many concentric envelopes. Man, they tell us,

is composed not of a single body simply, but of several layers of body,
each shell as it were respectively inclosing another. The outermost

is the merely material body, of which we are so directly cognizant.
This encases a second, more spiritual, but yet not wholly free from

earthly affinities. This contains another, still more refined; till
finally, inside of all is that immaterial something which they

conceive to constitute the soul. This eventual residuum exemplifies
the Franciscan notion of pure substance, for it is a thing

delightfully devoid of any attributes whatever.
We may, perhaps, not be aware of the existence of such an elaborate

set of encasings to our own heart of hearts, nor of a something so
very indefinite within, but the most casual glance at any religion

will reveal its truth as regards the soul of a belief. We recognize
the fact outwardly in the buildings erected to celebrate its worship.

Not among the Jews alone was the holy of holies kept veiled, to
temper the divineradiance to man's benighted understanding. Nor is

the chancel-rail of Christianity the sole survivor of the more
exclusive barriers of olden times, even in the Western world.

In the Ear East, where difficulty of access is deemed indispensable