votaries. The mass of the people have gained from it the notion of a future retribution, but what is the use of this when the promised state beyond death consists merely of clumsy fiction? The metempsychosis, administered by a moral fate, has only provided them with a convenient means for charging their sinfulness and their misfortunes on a former life. What virtue the people have among them is due to the Confucian system. Buddhism has added to it only idolatry, and a false view of the future state, but has not contributed to make the people more virtuous.

Klaproth complains of "a worthy and learned English missionary" (Dr. Marshman of Serampore) for saying, "Unhappily for mankind, Buddhism . . . was now fitted to spread its baneful influence to any extent."

These modes of expression are not, however, by any means too strong to describe the effects of this religion in China if we accept the Confucianist view of Buddhism. No thorough-going disciple of Confucius would think this language too strong if only Buddhism be judged from the standpoint of political and social morality. Surely if the Confucianist cannot see how the monk, who forsakes his family and his duties as a working citizen, is to be excused from heavy condemnation, the Christian also may be permitted to criticise with severity a system which denies the authority of God, identifies the moral nature of men and animals, teaches mankind to look to man instead of to God for redemption, and amuses the imagination with the most monstrous fictions of the unseen world and of the future state.

The morality of Buddhism has received very high praise from more recent writers. Professor Max Muller says, "The moral code of Buddhism is one of the most perfect the world has ever known." Mr. P. Hordern, the Director of Public Instruction in Birmah, says, "The poor heathen is guided in his daily life by precepts older and not less noble than the precepts of Christianity. Centuries

before the birth of Christ men were taught by the life and doctrine of one of the greatest men who ever lived lessons of the purest morality. The child was taught to obey his parents and to be tender of all animal life, the man to love his neighbour as himself, to be true and just in all his dealings, and to look beyond the vain shows of the world for true happiness. Every shade of vice was guarded by special precepts. Love in its widest sense of universal charity was declared to be the mother of all the virtues, and even the peculiarly Christian precepts of the forgiveness of injuries and the meek acceptance of insult were already taught in the farthest East.