170 THE EEV. E. COLLINS;, ON 



layan maliatmas ; and to find them still followers of such 

 men as Colonel Olcott, whom the too clever Blavatsky 

 evidently, to judge by her language, regarded as one of her 

 ''familiar muffs." When gigantic impositions like Theosophy 

 and Occultism can sway men, who are supposed to be 

 educated, in this boasted nineteenth century, as they seem 

 to be swaying Paris, for instance ; it does seem as if our 

 public schools and other educational bodies should look to 

 their laurels. It is not many months since the chairman of 

 a school board, in one of the largest towns in Yorkshire, 

 presided at a lecture given by one of the most prominent of 

 the expounders of Theosophy and Occultism. 



But these modern pretensions are no development of, nor 

 have they their origin in^ ancient Buddhism. 



' The Chairman (Dr. T. Chaplin) : — The applause which has 

 followed the reading of this paper is an indication of the readiness 

 with which you will join in a very warm vote of thanks to the 

 Author.* For myself, I feel bound to say that I have never read 

 and never listened to a more interesting paper upon this most 

 important subject, and I venture to express the hope that those 

 members and visitors who are present will favour the meeting with 

 their views upon it. 



Rev. G. U. Pope, D.D. — It has been a great pleasure to me to 

 listen to the words of one whom I claim as an old friend and, in 

 one sense, an old colleague, and, if I say anything at all it should 

 be in the sense of supplementing from my South Indian experiences 

 and studies the paper we have listened to. I do not wish for one 

 moment to represent myself as knowing anything special about the 

 oria:inal documents of Buddhism. I leave the consideration of that 



* The Eev. R Collins, M.A., was the selected author, in 1882, of the 

 Institute's essay on Christianity and Buddhism which was discussed by 

 several authorities at a meeting in 1884 (see vol. xviii). An able text 

 book on the subject was the result, which was stereotyped and circulated 

 in both hemispheres. The wide notice accorded to it, and to the Institute's 

 action, by the press in the Colonies and America, had beneficial results, 

 certain foreign correspondents reporting that the active propaganda 

 of fjilse views on the subject being carried ou had been checked, and in 

 some places abandoned. — Ed. 



