“the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness; the fruit thereof dust,”
“the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness; the fruit thereof dust,”
“the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness; the fruit thereof dust,”
“the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness; the fruit thereof dust,”
and man walketh in a vain show, he disquieteth himself in vain, if Buddha’s way be the only path of deliverance from evil, and Nirvana his only goal.
And so while we ought to be profoundly thankful for the intellectual culture and moral earnestnessthat made Buddha, in spite of himself, the reformer of Eastern Asia, it is manifest that even his best doctrines represent very partial and one-sided truths, “dwelt upon with morbid intensity, to the exclusion of every fact which might have modified them.”[237]His fundamental error was his wild attempt to explain the life of man independently of Divine control, and to guide man safely through the perils and temptations of existence by an ethical system founded on no appeal to an eternal principle of goodness without, but solely to self-interest. The result, which has been to identify the nature of man with that of the animals,[238]surely shows conclusively that religion and morality can never be dissociated without damage to both. A religion without morality must degrade. A system of morality apart from religion will never upraise. Religion is for man simply indispensable. Deity is a necessity to him, and deity he must have, though he finds his god in a tree or makes it out of a stone. Man lives by faith, faith in his higher self, faith in a higher than himself, who alone can explain the conflict between his actual condition and the ideals which he conceives. The modern Buddhist assumes that “religion is the science ofman, not the revelation of God, and he considers that comprehensions of deity are of far less consequence than just ideas of a man’s own self,”[239]but how can a man have a just idea of himself apart from some idea of God? According to his idea of God will be his estimate of himself. Buddhism, by ignoring God and preaching morality, has certainly failed to make its adherents moral, and it has imparted to what is noble in their morality the melancholy of despair.[240]
Ignoring God, it could only form, or could not emancipate itself from, a false conception of man, as part of a material system of things; but man, though considerably involved in a material system, never can be interpreted by it. On the contrary, nature can only be interpreted or properly understood in man as the lower in the higher. Man is an antagonist of nature; he is for ever condemning its ways, coming into collision with its laws, refusing to live its life. Out of this collision emerges his religion, while his morality originates in the conflict between his own sense of duty and its life of animal instinct.[241]To conform to nature, he must become a brute, but he has in him ideals andcapacities transcending it, and by exercising these capacities in pursuit of his ideals he finds his life. Buddha confessed to an ideal, and wrought hard to realise it, but alas for humanity when it finds no higher than self to reverence! Buddha’s theories of self-culture and self-deliverance reduced to practice have proved most miserable failures. It could not be otherwise; no man is likely to move the ship in which he sits by puffing away at the sails, or to lift himself out of the mire by simply pulling away at his boots; and no philosophy of self-culture, self-control, or self-rescue, can succeed, which ignores or refuses to acknowledge man’s instinct of worship. What he most needs is not law, not a system of morality, not even an example or model to copy, but inspiration. He knows already enough to condemn himself, and he has examples which, though far from perfect, quite suffice to confound him. The command to be perfect mocks him as truly as a command to see would mock a man stone-blind. What he does want is a powerful moral energy within him, for lack of which he has to confess that he cannot do the good he would, but is ever doing the evil which he would not. His real wretchedness is not his suffering and death, not even his ignorance, as Buddha thought, but the continual and seemingly ineffectual struggle between the animal and the man, the flesh and thespirit. And Buddhism was powerless to help him here. It lacked the steady support of the sense of duty to the highest and best, the inspiration that comes from the faith that the highest and best is for us, and is with us, and in us. Belief in God, as Bacon reminds us, is “essential to the consciousness of our nobility and dignity, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.” So Buddhism in unduly exalting man to the level of deity has in reality degraded him. It has indeed lifted wild races out of barbarism, but it has failed to civilise them. It has certainly not destroyed ignorance, and the worship of intelligence has not tended to its development and diffusion among the peoples whom it has swayed. Judged even by an ordinary standard, the monks of either Southern or Northern Buddhism are rarely found to be enlightened men, while the vast portion of the peoples among whom these monks are found are about the most ignorant of all. And just as certainly has it failed to make men free; for religion is the guarantee of freedom. “Where there is no place left in human thought for deity, there will soon be none found for human liberty.”[242]The basis of individual right is the recognition of adivine and purely moral government of man. If there be no higher than the highest man regarding us, we have only the right to live under the power of the strongest, and the reign of terror must succeed to that of order and law. The history of Buddhism and the miserable governments associated with it are telling comments upon and confirmation of the truth that belief in God is necessary to secure the rights of man.[243]
The progress of the human race will ever be in proportion to the strength of its conviction that it is governed and considered and sustained by a Power of infinite goodness ever making for righteousness. Such a conviction means inspiration, stimulating endurance and hope, and resolute struggle with evil in all its forms. In it is implied the assurance that resistance can never be in vain, that failure at the very worst is only partial success, and that all things work together for good. The time for this gospel had not come when Buddha called upon the people of India to “save themselves from this condition of wretchedness,” and the result of his mighty and benevolent efforts shows convincingly how urgent in human nature is the demandfor a Faith which will not only enlighten but enliven, which, recognising fully not only the sufferings but the whole necessities of man, and creating strong discontent with the world as we find it, and even disgust of human life as it is, will quicken in us persevering and deathless efforts to reform the one and to improve the other. Such a faith it is our privilege and awful responsibility to communicate. Our religion is higher than our grasp, for it is always above us. Alas! in too many cases it is higher than our aim, for we are too inclined to let it slip, and drift on the tides of things as they are; but mankind will never be satisfied with a lower.“Après l’invention du blé ils ne veulent pas encore vivre du gland.”“We needs must love the highest when we see it,” and we needs must strive to become like the highest when we love it. The gospel preaches consolation and hope to a suffering world, and promises grace upon grace to every endeavour to heal and amend its condition. Christ purifies and improves the life which we have by destroying only what is evil, and by preserving and training and ennobling all that is truly natural. Inexorably He demands the extinction of selfishness in all its forms, and He will not even permit us in our prayers to think and ask for ourselves. He reminds us that God is our Father in heaven, and what He gives is for all His family.Sternly He denounces as sinful the attempt to secure our own happiness here or in a better world hereafter; but He offers the heaven and Nirvana which He found in assuming the burdens of others, and in bearing their cross. So He assures us that it is worth our while to live, even in a world groaning and travailing with suffering, and that it will be worth our while, even in agony if we must, to die. It is indeed a very evil world, but as long as we draw our inspiration from Him we can live in it not only without damage but with great profit. When we offer ourselves in His strength for its salvation we will be saved from its sins. In the times of our deepest distress we will have the peace which He left us, and when most severely beset and cast down with sorrow because of what seems baffled endeavours, we have only to think of that hope of ultimate victory which made Him to endure to the end, to rise into
“that last large joy of all,Trust in the goodness and the love of HimWho, making so much well, will end all well.”
“that last large joy of all,Trust in the goodness and the love of HimWho, making so much well, will end all well.”
“that last large joy of all,Trust in the goodness and the love of HimWho, making so much well, will end all well.”
“that last large joy of all,
Trust in the goodness and the love of Him
Who, making so much well, will end all well.”