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ment of duty and belief which Revelation has brought to man ; 
and, I must add, the very slowness to accept even this, giving 
a higher value to conviction when it comes, and making con- 
verts from Buddhism some of the most satisfactory of the fruits 
of our missionary labours. I remember speaking, only re- 
cently, with a gentleman of considerable experience in the East, 
and he gave me this information: — <f When I was amongst 
those who were converts from the Hindoos I rather avoided 
having converted Christians for my servants, but when I came 
to Ceylon I was glad to have them — I found they were so much 
more honest and trustworthy/’ I was much struck with that 
statement, comiug, as it did, from a gentleman who, of the 
two, was rather prejudiced against our missionary labours, and 
not inclined to give too favourable an account of them. 
5. But I must show you more in detail the actual weakness 
of the system of which I speak so highly. 
1. It has no belief in God for its foundation. 
2. It has no worship , strictly speaking, to offer to its adhe- 
rents as the expression of such a belief. 
3. Its morality is based on a false principle of merit as well 
as in itself abounding in fictitious and invented duties. 
4. It has no future, beyond a few vague fears of possible 
suffering in a subsequent life, to escape from which is its 
highest good. 
(1 .) It has no God. I have already shown you that Pantheism, 
from its very indefiniteness, does not convey the idea of God in 
the sense in which men use the term, or conceive the idea of a 
Supreme Being ; an idea, you must observe, which is unu 
versal, or existing in some form in every known race, the 
supposed exceptions always, after sufficient inquiry, being found 
to fall under the common rule. The practical Atheism into 
which the system of Buddha subsided is really the inevitable 
result of this inability in Pantheism to supply the want which 
man feels, or to meet his innate sense of trust in a higher 
Power to which he can appeal. It was to escape from the con- 
tradictions of what was practically Polytheism that the Buddhist 
founder invented this substitute, to guard which, as he thought, 
he denied creation and moral supremacy, as the channels 
through which the worship he wished to uproot might reappear. 
But Atheism is the necessary consequence of such a denial, as 
its inevitable result and condition, and accordingly, whether 
accepting the term or no, the Buddhist teachers are atheistic, 
and in this fearful error lies the weakness of their entire system. 
Their worship is a contradiction of their theory of belief, instead 
