141 
results upon their people. I am not anxious to arm you with 
prejudices against the wonderful system we are examining, as 
if I were afraid that you might be induced to judge too 
leniently of its errors, or inclined to rate its points of excellence 
higher than those of our own faith. I can truly say that I 
have never felt myself so entirely satisfied with the absolute 
verity and truth of the gospel as when I could compare it with 
the best of all other religions, and after I had seen such reli- 
gions at their best. It is nothing to be able to say that by the 
side of mere idolatry and corrupt superstitions the pure 
morality and reasonable belief which the gospel teaches shine 
out clear and bright as the sun in the firmament. I would 
rather you should compare these with the best possible system 
of morality and belief that can be found, and then draw your 
conclusion — which of all these is a revelation from God ? 
which bears the impress of a Divine origin in all it requires 
you to believe or to do? And in bringing to your notice 
the Buddhist system, I am strongly of opinion that you will 
find nothing out of Christianity equal to it, still less supe- 
rior. It may seem strange that I should say this of a religion 
which I have called Atheistic , and I will therefore at once 
give you my own idea of the character of that negation of 
Deity, which is the very root of the falsity of the entire system. 
You must, then, compare the Buddhist creed with that from 
which it sprang, and of which it was at first the denial — 
Brahminism. In this ancient religion, I need not tell you, a 
belief in God has a prominent place; it is, in fact, a belief in 
“ Gods many,” in the numerous attributes or names under which 
it offers its homage to a Supreme Being ; its chief corruption is 
the utterly carnal and evil form which the idea it presents 
of Deity has assumed. It imputes the worst passions and 
crimes to the Gods it professes to believe in and to honour. It 
is, in fact, a more philosophical form of mere Polytheism ; but 
not one whit less corrupt than the Paganism which is familiar 
to us in the mythology of Greece and Rome, whilst the wor- 
ship it offers is simply debasing, — the only exception to the 
terrible corruption of the entire system being at the two 
extremes, some of the highest priests who live wholly abstracted 
from life and contact with men, and the few of the simplest 
peasantry who, with a childlike belief in powers above them- 
selves, offer prayer to a God they know not, but Who in His 
love hears them, and is not “ far from” them. Such, happily, 
there may be found in every race, in every religion which can 
be called such ; it is these first who, when Christianity is pro- 
claimed, accept it with ready and eager assent, and form its 
