14 EVOLUTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



improbable that it usually means annihilation; it more probably denotes 

 a state so far transcending anything we can even conceive of at present, 

 that it can only be characterised by negations. Nirvana, in this latter 

 sense, appears to be referred to in several passages of the New Tes- 

 tament (Matt, xxii. 30; Mark x. 30, etc.), which is not surprising 

 when we consider the remarkable parallel which exists between 

 Buddhism and Christianity, both as regards the characters of their 

 founders, the essential principles of their morality, and the modern rites 

 and ceremonies with which they have become encrusted at Lhasa and 

 Home. Buddha, however, was more of an ascetic than Christ, owing, 

 perhaps, to his original royal birth having given him a greater contempt 

 for the vanities of the world. 



Note C. 

 GOD AS THE SPIRITUAL SUN. 



All nations have worshipped the supreme Deity under the symbol of 

 the Sun or Light ; from the Persians and Jews (the latter of whom 

 had their Burning Bush and their Shekinah) to the Christians, who 

 represent a " glory " round the heads of God and the saints. But apart 

 from the question as to whether the " glory " may not signifiy simply 

 odic light, the Sun is still, with the possible exception of Alcyone, the 

 grandest physical symbol of the Deity which modern science can present 

 to us. And sublime as is the Hindu conception of the Trimurti with its 

 three-fold attributes of the creating, upholding, and destroying powers 

 of the Universe united in one, the symbol may also hide a physical 

 mystery, and point to the triple powers of the sun's rays the heat, the 

 light, and chemical rays. The constitution of sunlight may have been 

 known to the wise men of the east ; and it would be worth while to 

 enquire whether any hint of such a meaning is concealed in the word 

 AUM, or any other of the sacred names of the Deity. 



