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expect the perfection of their characters through suffering. It is 

 certainly noteworthy that both Christianity and Buddhism agree in 

 asserting that all creation travaileth in pain, in bodily suffering, in 

 tribulation. But mark the vast, the vital distinction in the teach- 

 ing of each. The one taught men to aim at the glorification of the 

 suffering body, the other at its utter annihilation. What says our 

 Bible ? We Christians, it says, are members of Christ's Body, of 

 His flesh and of His Bones, of that Divine Body, which was a 

 suffering body, a cross-bearing body, and is now a glorified body, 

 an ever-living, life-giving body. A Buddhist, on the other hand, 

 repudiates, as a simple impossibility, all idea of being a member of 

 the Buddha's body. How could a Buddhist be a member of a body 

 which was burnt, which was dissolved, which became extinct at the 

 moment when the Buddha's whole personality became extinguished 

 also ? But, say the admirers of Buddhism, at least you will admit 

 that the Buddha told men to get rid of sin, and to aim at sanctity 

 of life ? Nothing of the kind. The Buddha had no idea of sin, 

 as an offence against God, no idea of true holiness. What he said 

 was, Get rid of the demerit of evil actions and accumulate merit by 

 good actions. This storing up of merit like capital at a bank 

 is one of those inveterate propensities of human nature which 

 Christianity alone has delivered men from. 



" Only the other day I met an intelligent Sikh from the Punjab, 

 and asked him about his religion. He replied, ' I believe in One 

 God, and I repeat my prayers, called Jap-jee, every morning and 

 evening. These prayers occupy six pages of print, but I can get 

 through them in little more than ten minutes.' He seemed to 

 pride himself on this rapid recitation as a work of increased merit. 

 I said, 'What else does your religion require of you?' He 

 replied, 'I have made one pilgrimage to a sacred well near 

 Amritsar ; eighty -five steps lead down to it. I descended and bathed 

 in the sacred pool. Then I ascended one step and repeated my 

 Jap-jee in about ten minutes. Then I descended again to the 

 pool and bathed again, and ascended to the second step and 

 repeated my prayers a second time. Then I descended a third 

 time, and ascended to the third step, and repeated my Jap-jee a 

 third time ; and so on for the whole eighty-five steps. It took me 

 exactly fourteen hours, from 5 p.m. one evening to 7 a.m. next 

 morning.' I asked, ' What good did you expect to get by going 

 through this task ? ' He replied, ' I hope I have laid up a great 

 store of -merit, which will last me for a long time.' This, let me 



