he says, on the sole testimony of Sakyamuni, which ought to be sufficient for us, inasmuch as it is quite as strong as the evidence that we actually have for the historicity of the early Emperors of Japan and of many Sages and Saints in Chinese and European history. ( section 42). It is true that Hozo Biku may have been the creature of S'akyamuni's fancy: that would not necessarily imply that he had had no real existence,--for there are many creatures of the imagination that may claim a practically real and true existence. (David Copperfield, to wit, for whose historicity the Town Council of Dover has made itself responsible, by affixing to the wall of a house in the Market Square a tablet indicating the spot where David sat whilst waiting for his Aunt.) Historicity is not the sole Test of Truth, it is only a spiritual short-sightedness that would induce us to think so [**] ( section 43). When Hozo lived, and when he fulfilled his Vow, we have no means of determining: the statements of the Sutra vary between a period of ten kalpas ago and a period, still more remote, of indefinite magnitude. In things religious there are no distinctions of time, near or remote, [*+] a thousand years are but as one day, and we must be content with a general expression that it took place at some period of remote antiquity. What is of the utmost importance for us to believe is that the

personal continuity has never been broken, that the one thread of identical personality runs through the whole series of events connected with the Redemption of Man, that as the Amida, Who, from His abode in Heaven, looked down with compassion on sinful mankind, is identical with Hozo the monk who made his Vow to accomplish salvation so, through all the time that the Vow was in the working-out, the personal identity remained constant and unchanged. The Hozo of the period of His Humiliation (to use a Christian term for the Buddhist # in-i) was the same as the Hozo of the period of His Glorification # kwa-i), when, having wrought deliverance for man, He received His new name of Namu-Amida Butsu, the Infinite Being that has become finite and has worked out man's salvation ( section 45). The glorified and ascended Amida must therefore still be looked upon as a Personal Being, the distinctive personality which He assumed when He appeared on earth as Hozo has continued with Him and has passed for ever out of this world into those spiritual realms into which Namu-Amida Butsu entered on the day on which Hozo Biku's labours were finally accomplished ( section 46).

I believe that I have honestly set forth the teachings about Hozo Biku, as laid down in the Shinshu Hyakuwa. I may perhaps be allowed to formulate the conclusions that I draw from a very long study of the subject.