17 JULY 1886, Page 13

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY CONTRASTED.

(TO TRY EDITOR OF THY " SPECTATOR:1

your impression of July 10th, you discuss this question wisely and well, and as you allude to Buddhism in connection with Theosophy, perhaps you will permit me, as one who occu- pied the position of President of the British Theosophical Society for some years, to offer a few remarks on the subject.

I joined the Theosophical Society on the understanding that it was a Theistic Society, founded for the purpose of "Investi- gating the Nature and Power of the Human Soul on the Ground of its Divine Sonship to the Great First Intelligent Cause." The founders of the Society, however, in India identi- fied themselves as Buddhists of the Southern, or Atheistic, school of Buddhism, and the lady founder of the Society openly declared herself to be an Atheist. I then at once retired from the Society, because a Theosophic Society without a God was, of course, an absurdity.

So far as one can comprehend the teaching of the so-called Theosophists of the Atheistic Buddhist school, they are, that the soul and spirit are evolutions from matter, and that the supreme knowledge which saves the soul can only be acquired by the innermost self-introspection, and herein lies the great contrast between this form of Buddhism and Theism and Christianity. In this form of Buddhism there are no such words or thoughts as "Lead me to the rock which is higher than I ;" or, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit ;" or," Our Father, who art in heaven ;" or, indeed, any belief in any intelligence higher than the highest celestial man.

The moral teachings of Gautama Buddha and of Jesus Christ are closely allied as to purity, love, and self-denial ; but on the other side, while there is no allusion by Buddha to a supreme intelligent First Cause, the continual teaching of Jesus is the personality and fatherhood of God ; and hence I conceive it is that while Buddhism, having no external elevating force as its attraction upwards, has more and more become degraded into the lowest superstition and formalism, while Christianity, having, in direct communication with its centre, the attractive force of a Divine love from above, must for ever be drawn upwards, and thus develop by evolution those nations in the direct ratio of their living belief.

The great interest at present taken in Buddhism has arisen out of the recent researches of Oriental scholars, and more immediately from the influence of that beautiful poem, "The Light of Asia." A large proportion of thoughtful people have become dissatisfied with the conventionality and formality of much Christian teaching, and Buddhism has been presented to these minds in a philosophical form, and by the poem in a lovely form ; and the consequence has been that many who were in- different or agnostical have found in Buddhism so presented a vague form of faith which has pleased their imaginations. But the Buddhism of "The Light of Asia" has no resemblance to the practical Buddhism of Thibet, China, or Japan, where it has, as I have said, become degraded into the lowest forms of superstition and formality, as, for instance, in the praying- wheels of individuals and of communities. It is not denied that Christianity in the Middle Ages also descended to the lowest depths of superstition and formality ; but in the midst of the vilest periods of the Christian Church, arose men like Michael Angelo, Raffaele, and Dante ; while this very degrada- tion of the Church was the cause of the rebound to a higher order of things under Luther.

Buddhism, however, having no internal or external force of reaction, has not and cannot even arise out of its ashes ; and it is very noteworthy that beyond Gautama himself, out of Buddhism during the last 2,400 years has arisen no prophet, no poet, no artist, no musician, no man of science, no discoverer, and not even one warrior of renown.

Buddhism becomes transcendent in "The Light of Asia ;" but Jesus has always been in the Sermon on the Mount, "The Light of the World ;" and even a Shakespeare, had he attempted to turn into an epic the words of the Divine and miraculous Son of Man, could have attempted no more than "to gild refined gold."—I am, Sir, &c, GEORGE WYLD, M.D.