.295 
certainly all the extinct ones, have passed through their several 
phases of thought; some have been for a *ong time arrested at 
one period of their development and some at another ; a 
powerful genius or an original thinker has written treatises ox* 
composed formularies which for many generations fixed the 
religion of his country at a particular point; at various times, 
roused, doubtless, bv some monition of that divine instinct which 
never wholly leaves the heart of man, some fervid reformei, 
bold in his zeal and confident of his truth, nas by his energy 
and teaching given prominence to certain special doctrines of his 
religion, and so to a great extent modified or explained away 
the errors or the difficulties of his creed; but still the religion, 
being simply a human, and so far a natural* one, retrograded 
in its simplicity, and gradually sank into decay. More and 
more distinctive teaching, and more rigid dogmas, were intro- 
duced to retain within the orthodox Church the hearts of men 
whose faith was waxing cold, and an excess of ritual and cere- 
mony not unfrequentlv burst forth at the moment of inanition 
when, wearied by doctrines that could not profit, and ceremonies 
which had no regenerating power, the people, as a body, sank 
into animalism as the only practical good ; and the wiser few of 
higher intellect, but unconvinced judgment, turned with sorrow- 
ing scorn to the barren consolations of philosophy, and pain- 
fully asked themselves, as Pliny did, “ Is there a God ? ’'+ and 
the fool made answer in his heart, “ There is wo God.” j There 
is probably nothing moi’e painful to a Christiaxx than to note 
with what sublime theories the ancient sages were endued, and 
vet to see to what contemptible depths of atheism and bestial 
"folly their teaching gave rise ; between the recorded sayings of 
Sakya Munyi and St. Paul, between the discourses of Milinda§ 
and many an earnest preacher of the present day, there is osten- 
sibly but little to choose, yet the one has for its ultimatum the 
infinite Nihilism of Nirvana, and the other finds its climax in 
the rapture of Corinthians xv. and the chastened confidence 
of the Epistle to Timothy. The maxims of Confucius and of 
Solomon are in strong parallelism, but the one concludes with 
the admonition, “ Respect the gods;]] and keep out of their way”; 
* Natural; that is, of course, only in the sense of an unrevealed doctrine, 
f Pliny, Nat. Hist., fib. ii. cap. v., “of God.” Bohn’s ed. 
J Psa. liii. It 
S See Hardy's Manual of Buddhism for further particulars. 
|j See Martin, The San Kiau, or the Three Religions of China, in 
Dickenson’s Theological Quarterly, No. 7, p. 371. 
