Science is steadily making its progress in various fields of human knowledge, and our intellectual sphere is being constantly widened; while pious, God-fearing religionists are still dreaming of the by-gone days, when their forefathers were engaged in the so-called holy wars, or when they were conducting the most atrocious, most diabolical outrage against humanity called the Inquisition. These facts often make me pause and think of their ultimate significance, wondering how slow man's progress is in things spiritual.

However this may be, Buddhism through its rationality and matter-of-fact-ness has never been intolerant and narrow-minded. It has always borne in mind that howsoever many avenues there may be to the summit of enlightenment, the position once gained will allow us all, regardless of racial and national variations, to see but one universal. light of truth. The highest being is known under various names and appellations,

among various peoples on earth, according to their culture, education, and environment. Humanity, being essentially the same everywhere, it will sooner or later come to the knowledge of a supreme moral and spiritual power which governs the universe and whose commands we are compelled under penalty of annihilation to respect and obey. Whatever circumstances may lead to a difference of conception as to the details of its operation, the power of religion is fundamentally love,--love that does not exclude nor discriminate nor particularize; and this kind of love is realizable only when we recognize naturally and rationally and humanly the divinity of all existence and the universality of truth, in whatever divers aspects they may be considered and by whatever different paths they may be approached.

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Now to return to the subject-proper of this discourse. Buddhism views the world under two aspects, phenomenal and supra-phenomenal. In the phenomenal world, the law of birth and death rules supreme, and here is nothing that will endure forever. Everything that exists under the sun is fleeting; it passes away as rapidly as the swift ships or as the eagle that swoopeth on the prey. The sun that has risen will set, the mountains so towering will crumble, the turbulent ocean will be drained, and the earth itself will be shaken from its foundations. That which has been is no more, and that which is is changing

fast. Indeed, the world is no more than a constant flux of becoming. Therefore, the Buddha declares: "Transitory, verily, are things, subject to the law of birth and death; and things born are doomed to die."