complement each other; but neither singly nor combined do they constitute the religion man needs. The prudential wisdom of Confucius is without the enthusiasm of humanity. It has no large ideals, no exalted hopes, no universal and Divine affinities with which to transform and inspire man. His worship of ancestors means but the despotism of the dead and the bondage of the living, the sacrifice of a progressive and happy future to a narrow and inflexible past. Look at the religion as realized in the people, so quick-witted, yet so stationary, so docile in things of sense and craft, so jealous and slow to learn in things of the spirit, and then imagine what it would be were the world an immense Chinese Empire, enslaved and impoverished by a dead and exhausted past. Nearer to us lies India, and there Brahmanism rules. It is an active, in some senses an aggressive religion, absorbing new tribes, new beliefs, and ever voracious, crying for Yet think what it is-the most awful tyranny of custom and caste. Where it goes, its iron distinctions go, making brotherhood, freedom, the happy intercourse of man with man impossible. Morality is unknown to it; it can deify the basest as easily as the best. It reduces personal existence to a calamity, hard to be borne, still harder to be evaded-a ceaseless revolving in the wheel of being that is to be not so much feared as abhorred. Brahmanism universalized could only mean man depraved and sent to wander wearily through time in search of eternal oblivion and peace. more. (2.) But these are not the only great religions Asia can show us. Two others claim our attention, more generous and universal, inspired by a moral and missionary BUDDHISM AND ISLAM. 97 spirit. Buddhism is a mighty faith, numerically the mightiest in the world. It is, too, a gentle faith; within it stands a beautiful human personality, which has exercised a sweet and softening influence on its spirit. But even with its admired and admirable ethics, has Buddhism the qualities of the religion man needs? A religion without God is a religion without hope, and a hopeless religion can never do victorious battle against the ills of time. Buddhism is the apotheosis of sorrow and the victory of suffering; man, in order to escape from it, seeking to escape from being-not man resolved that he shall conquer evil, in order that being may be holy and happy. But this cardinal principle makes Buddhism, in spite of its beautiful ethics, radically selfish, and as impotent as selfish. Virtue is cultivated as the way out of sorrow, not as the way to vanquish it. A religion whose highest aim is selfish care for one's own happiness, is a religion of spiritual death. Islam is the very opposite of Buddhism. It humbles man, it magnifies God. Its God is almighty, righteous, merciful, the supreme Sovereign and Judge of man. In it stern Semitic monotheism exists in its sternest form. If fanatical belief in a severe and inflexible deity could make a perfect religion, then Islam had been perfect. But it is only like the truth that it may be the more false to it. The god of Mohammed is a fierce Arab chief invested with the name and attributes of the Almighty. The service he demands is absolute submission, not rational obedience. He spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood must be sacred if manhood is to be hon H ourable. Spoil the wife of sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so has it been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes; it has depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of man, then his state were hopeless; before him could only lie retrogression, tyranny, and despair. Where, then, shall we turn for the religion we need? Shall we turn to Judaism? Judea, indeed, has perished, but Judaism survives, seeking to be at home everywhere, not caring to make converts, caring only to be allowed to live. Once, indeed, it was a glorious faith-had poets making psalms that were to be for all after-ages the sacred songs of the world; had prophets speaking of God, and for God, words that were to live like lifegiving spirits; had priests, and a temple, and a worship that were to be to all time symbols of eternal truth. But Judaism was great only as a prophetic religion; once it ceased to be prophetic, it ceased to live; its work was done eighteen centuries ago, and since then its life has been but a reminiscence, an exhausted and spent existence passed in the shadow of its ancient glories. IV. From these imperfect faiths, passed in a so hurried review, let us turn to one nearer and more familiar, the faith in which we were born, by which we live, which has created the civilization, the freedom, the intellectual life, the noblest moral qualities of our RELIGION OF CHRIST. 99 Western world. I feel that I hardly dare trust myself in the little time I can now command to speak of the religion of Christ. For what can I say worthy of so great a theme? The most I can do is to ask you to look at it as it confronts you, the religion of civilized man, and man it has civilized. Study it first as regards its ideal contents, and then as regards its actual work or achievements in this world, and then say if there is any religion so complete, so beautiful, so absolutely perfect in the truths it presents to knowledge or to faith, or any that can show so glorious a roll of noble and beneficent service for man. I would it were possible to show the new spirit, the new light and life it brought into the world, and to trace its silent, penetrative, transforming, action in man and society, in the individual and the State. The most that can be done is to indicate in a sentence or two some of the qualities that most distinguish it, first on the ideal side, and secondly on the actual. 1. On the ideal side only three points need be noted -the idea of God, the idea of man, and the relation between man and God instituted and realized in Christ. As regards the first let this be marked: there is no surer measure of the essential character and quality of a religion than the way in which it conceives God. God is, indeed, its creative and alldetermining conception, diffusing itself everywhere like a subtle essence. As He is, everything is, from the minutest atom to the mightiest mind. In His works His essential qualities are revealed; the motives from which He creates determine all His actions and relations towards the beings He has created. The world can never be better than its Creator, never happier than He meant and means it to be. Now think how gloriously Divine is the Being placed by the religion of Christ as the Maker and Ruler of the universe! He creates that He may love and be loved, that He may be a Father to the infinite multitudes of creatures that live in His presence and rejoice in the sunshine of His face. The evil that falls like a shadow over His works His grace pierces, lifts, forces into a background that makes the light of His love only seem the more radiant. He is righteous, too righteous to spare the sin that works misery, but too spiritual to treat moral as if it were physical evil, to be conquered by almighty energies rather than by agencies of grace. Such a God, an eternal Father and Sovereign, infinite personalized love and righteousness, has boundless promise of good and hope for man. He cannot forget, He will not forsake His universe, loves it, watches it, guides it as it moves through its mingled shade and sunshine towards His more perfect day. And as God is conceived, so is man. The Creator is mirrored in the creature. There is nothing that touches man like the sad mystery of his being. Moments come to us when thought looks out into the immensities above, around, and below, into the eternities behind and before, and in saddest despair we cry, Whence? O heaven "What am I? Why am I? whither?" To these questions what a Divine answer Christ brings! 'Ye are God's sons, come out of His love, live in His love, and every moment His love seeks your good." "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." But, then, man's soul is not unsullied; the face he lifts to heaven is often red with shame, seamed with |