MDCCCXC
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PREFACE
In endeavouring to sketch in so limited a space even the most salient features of the many-sided religion of Buddhism it is possible that here and there I may have misrepresented it.
If so, I hope the fault will be attributed to inadvertence, or rather to disadvantages under which I have worked. The sacred beliefs of any section of mankind are entitled to receive at our hands not only justice but kindly consideration, and a religion so vast and in some respects so wonderful as Buddhism ought to have much to commend it to our sympathy. Long and patient study of it has indeed greatly modified opinions originally formed concerning it, but it has only tended to increase respect for so earnest an effort of the intellect to solve the mystery of human life and destiny. Even Christians may have something to learn from Buddhists. The divers and seemingly antagonistic Churches of Christendom help to educate and reform each other, and non-Christian religions may perform a similar office to Christianity in bringing into prominence some universal truths which its creeds have allowed to slip into forgetfulness. Our perception and apprehension of what Christianity really is will be all the clearer and firmer for an impartial study of the system formulated so long ago by Gotama the Buddha.
The aim of the Lecture has not been to use the extravagances of Buddhism as a foil to set off the excellencies of Christianity. That Christianity as a religion is immensely superior to Buddhism goes without saying, unless in the case of a very small and conceited and purblind minority. I have tried by a fair exposition of what is best and highest in this religion to discover its feeling after something better and higher still, and to suggest rather than indicate the place which it occupies in the religious education of humanity. As
“Man hath all which nature hath, but more,
And in that more lie all his hopes of good,”
so Christianity, while having in it in fuller measure and clearer form every truth that has vivified any other religion, has in it, as the new creation to which the long travail of the soul under every form of faith has from the first been pointing, something peculiar and contrasted—which is the Divine answer to all their aspirations. This we do not need to demonstrate: indeed it may be a verity, as incapable of demonstration as is that of the existence of Deity or the immortality of the soul. It is sure eventually to be almost universally recognised, and meanwhile, whether accepted or denied, we may say—E pur si muove.