544 



BUDDHISM AND DEMON-WORSHIP. 



[PART IV. 



worship to contemplation ; with only so much of actual 

 ceremonial as may render visible to the eye what would 

 be otherwise inaccessible to the mind. The same love of 

 repose which renders sleep and insensibility the richest 

 blessings of this life, anticipates torpor, akin to extinction, 

 as the supremest felicity of the next. In common with 

 all other nations they deem some form of religious wor- 

 ship indispensable, but, contrary to the usage of most, 

 they are singularly indifferent as to what that particular 

 form is to be ; leaving it passively to be determined by 

 the conjunction of circumstances, the accident of locality, 

 and the influence of friends or worldly prospects of gain. 

 Still, in the hands of the Christian missionary, they are 

 by no means the plastic substance which such a descrip- 

 tion would suggest capable of being moulded into 

 any form, or retaining permanently any casual im- 

 pression- but rather a yielding fluid which adapts its 

 shape to that of the vessel into which it may happen to 

 be poured, without any change in its quality or any mo- 

 dification of its character. 



From the unexcitable temperament of the people, com- 

 bined with the exalted morals which form the articles of 

 their belief, result phenomena which for upwards of three 

 hundred years have more or less baffled the exertions of 

 all who have laboured for the overthrow of their national 

 superstition and the elevation of Christianity in its stead. 

 The precepts of the latter, when offered to the natives 

 apart from the divinity of their origin, present something 

 in appearance so nearly akin to their own tenets that they 

 have been slow to discern their superiority. If Christianity 

 requires purity and truth, temperance, honesty and bene- 

 volence, these are already discovered to be enjoined with 

 at least equal impressiveness in the precepts of Buddha. 

 The Scripture commandment forbidding murder is sup- 

 posed to be analogous to the Buddhist prohibition to kill 1 ; 



1 The order of Buddha not to take 

 away life is imperative and unqua- 

 lified as regards the priesthood ; but 



to mankind in general it forms one 

 of his " Sikfhapada," or advices, and 

 admits of modification under certain 



