at all afraid of the charge of blasphemy or irreligiosity likely to be preferred by some pious Christians.

This purification or illumination of self-will, however, must not be confused with antinomianism. or libertinism. The latter is given up to the wantonness of self-will and not to the free activity of the divine will. What the pure-hearted do is always pure, while whatever comes from a heart defiled with egoism is defiled and irrational. There are many points in the religious life which make it very difficult to distinguish the latter from the ethical life, for both are so closely related. But we could consider the subjectivity of religion as most characteristically contrasted to the objectivity of ethics. The distinction between the self-will and the divine will must be personally felt and individually experienced. This may sound vague and be considered as taking refuge in the maze of subjectivism; but the fact is that religion has its foundation in our subjective life, and anything that relates to it lacks in definition and exactitude so typical of things objective and intellectual. Religion, when devoid of this mystical element, loses its irresistible fascination. Of course, we must not make it abide always in the camera obscura of imagination and mysticism. We must take it out in the broad daylight of science and subject it to an intellectual scrutiny. But we cannot for all that ignore the fact that there is something in religion which defies

or escapes the most penetrating searchlight of intellectual analysis. And in this something there lies its charm, its raison d'etre, and its power to remove vexation of spirit.

Whatever this be, Nirvana, in which the spirituality of a human being is fully realized, can be attained only after most strenuous moral efforts on the part of the aspirant. Intellectual knowledge can be acquired through an outside agency; we of latter days may be far wiser in this particular respect than all our venerable moral and religious teachers of bygone ages, such as Socrates, Plato, Buddha, and Christ. But the spiritual region lies within, and each of us must strive, through our own inner and individual efforts and not through any outside agency, to unfold ourselves and bring about enlightenment. We may have high ideals, but let us remember that they can be realized only after long discipline and untiring exertion. Let those therefore forever strive--those that wish to follow the fundamental idea of Buddhism.

"When the scholar driveth away sloth by earnestness,
He attaineth to the palace of wisdom,
Sorrowless in the sorrowing world,
And the wise one, he, looks upon the ignorant,
Even as one on the mountain-peak looks upon one on the ground,"
--Dharmapada, 28.