How then shall we explain the failure of Buddhism? For it has failed, more completely than Brahmanism. to meet the spiritual necessity of any race except the Mongolian. India rejected a doctrinal system which had no room for the ideas of sin, atonement, and the significance of life which Brahmanism had tried to express. Its home since has been in countries of a lower type of civilization, such as Burinah, Siam, Thibet, China, Corea and Mongolia. The Aryan and Semitic peo ples will never adopt it, for they have truer con ceptions of God, of the worth of human life and the significance of the world, than any which it presents. The fundamental weakness of Buddhism is that it denies all reality. According to it, there is no God and the supreme aim of man is to cease to be. There is no need of a Creator, for there is force in the world, and as no force can ever be lost, why should it not have been from the begin ning? What we call the soul does not survive death. "lie is a heretic who holds that man has a permanent soul or self separate from the body." The consequences of our past, hypostasized as Karma or Act, alone survive, and round this fancied Karma new bodies repeatedly gather, until Nirvana is attained. No such uncom promising system of pessimism has ever been successfully preached. Therefore it had to fail, though successful for a time, partly as a develop ment and partly as a recoil from Brahmanism. (See BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY CONTRASTED.) (3) Confucianism, like Brahmanism, is es sentially a local, rather than a universal religion. Rooted in the soil, the history and the ideals of China, it cannot extend far beyond its boundaries. Unlike Buddhism. it plants itself firmly on this world. considering it and the relations of life ev erything. Thus practically ignoring the spiritual. it left a void, felt even by a materialistic people, which Buddhism—invited into the country—filled in a crude fashion. This explains why almost every Chinaman is both a Confucianist and a Buddhist. A inure striking confession that each religion is one-sided could hardly be given.
To Confucius, society was the great reality; and as social disorders abounded in his time, he had to look for a remedy. He found the remedy in the wisdom of the past, and to the task of com piling and editing its precious records he gave his whole strength. His influence on China, through his disciples. and still more through his classics, is the greatest illustration history gives of what can and what cannot be done by education, and by law, eustominstitutions, and ritual. Hebelieved that man is good by nature and that if only a sound education be given and a right example set by his superiors, he will assuredly be moral. Edu cation therefore lies at the foundation of society and the governing classes are the consummate flower of the educational system. They have been drilled in ethics from their youth and the inculca tion of duty is backed up by examples from the lives of ancient worthies.
The practical results may be seen in the present condition of the Chinese people; industrious and law-abiding, but low in their aims and destitute of the mighty hopes which make tis men ; their literati filled with self-conceit and contempt for others, but narrow, bigoted and puerile themselves. Confucius ignored the spiritual world, not seeing that the spiritual rules the material. Ile was a historian, scribe. teacher, or, as he himself said, a "transmitter:" but he was not a prophet, or "maker." Mankind needs both. Israel had Moses and the Prophets as well as Ezra the scribe. We have the spirit of Jesus as well as great legalists and theologians.
(4) Mohammedanism. Mohammedanism is monotheistic. God is in heaven; not as he is to the Hindu, in everything. To the Buddhist, there is no reality; to the Confucianist, society with Its order and settled government is all-sufficient; to the Moslem, God is the one reality and man's glory is to do or to bow to his will. "Islam means that we must submit to God." And there is no complexity in the divine nature. The doctrine of the Trinity is inconceivable. God is an arithmetical unit. The gulf between God and man is not bridged over by the incarnation. There is therefore no ministration of the Spirit and no provision for bringing man into that filial relation to God in which alone his true life consists. Instead of the Person of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus, Mohammedanism offers only an imperfect prophet and an imperfect book. It gives thus an inade quate conception of God and equally an inadequate conception of man. When man is only the subject, servant or slave of God. he cannot be the child and heir. Dependence on God is taught, but not the high privilege of fellowship with Him nor the law of progress. This inadequate conception of man is seen most clearly in Mohammed's low estimate of woman, and the consequent degradation of fam ily and social life.
(5) Christianity. Christianity is based on the essential identity of God and man, and on their reconciliation in Jesus, crucified for us and now dwelling in us by his Spirit. it has already vindi cated itself in comparison with other religions. and "the history of the world is the judgment of the world." The highest civilization is commen surate with Christendom, and from this verdict of humanity there can be no appeal. As the re ligions of Babylon and Egypt, of Greece and Rome, of the Germanic and Scandinavian peo ples have passed away, not without leaving be hind an inheritance absorbed by the religion of Jesus, so shall it be with the other great religions. Each of them is acting the part of a school master to bring their worshipers to the Christ, even as the Law did for Israel; and each may leave some residuum in the system which super sedes it for the use of its late votaries.
G. M. G.