Merit gained by any good conduct in these hells enables the person to rise even to the celestial regions.
The souls of all the universe have existed from eternity, transmigrating for ever, and thus rising and falling in the scale of existence according to the degrees of merit at each birth. This is decided not by any deity but by immutable fate. In passing through these changes the amount of sorrow is incalculable. The Bedegat declares that the tears shed by one soul in its various changes are so great that the ocean in comparison is but a drop. Sorrow is declared to be the inevitable attendant of all existence, and therefore “the chief end,” and the highest reward of Boodhism is, annihilation.
The system of Boodhism commenced about six hundred years before Christ, and has pervaded eastern, central and southern Asia about as long and as fully as Christianity has pervaded Europe. The Burman empire, where this account of that faith was obtained, presents the most favorable results of this system on the character and condition of its votaries.
In China, Buddhism (another name for Boodhism) is the popular religion. With it is associated Confucianism, which is a system of morals and politics instituted by Confucius, B. C. 550, which teaches nothing in regard to any God or a future state. With them co-exist the sect of Laotze, which is a kind of rationalism. Most of the temples and priests are those of Boodh or Budda, but there is no such organized priesthood as in Burmah, nor is this religion maintained by governmental power. It is also considerably modified by the more ancient system of polytheism.
In Thibet and Tartary, the religion of the Grand Lama chiefly prevails, which is one form of Boodhism.
In western India, Brahmanism is in constant warfare with Boodhism, and the two systems are perfectly antagonistic. Brahmanism teaches one eternal deity and three hundred and thirty-three millions of other gods, with hosts of idols representing them; Boodhism has no deity at all, and only one image, that of Gaudama. Brahmanism enjoins sacrifices; Boodhism forbids killing. Brahmanism requires atrocious tortures; Boodhism inculcates fewer austerities than even Popery. Brahmanism makes lying, fornication and theft sometimes commendable, and describes the gods as excelling in such crimes; Boodhism never confounds [pg 200] right and wrong, and never excuses any sin. Brahmanism makes the highest good or chief end of man to be absorption into the supreme deity; Boodhism makes annihilation the highest hope and aim of existence. These two systems, together with Mohammedanism, so prevail in Hindostan that the distinct results of each can never be compared. These are the prevailing religions in the most advanced pagan nations at the present time; and of the two, Boodhism is the best, and probably has been the most fairly tested in Burmah.
In past ages the two most highly developed heathen nations were those of Greece and Rome, and of their religion we have the fullest records. It is not probable that any one will consider their system of religion superior to this now exhibited of modern paganism.
The result is that the most highly developed heathen nations, as yet, have attained but very imperfectly the system of common sense.
No heathen religion ever taught an eternally-existing Creator, perfect in knowledge, wisdom, power and benevolence. None ever taught that the chief end of our Creator is happiness-making on the greatest possible scale. None ever taught that this also is the chief end for which man is created. None ever taught that right moral action, or true virtue, consists in good willing toward the Creator, toward self, and toward our fellow-beings, according to the laws of the Creator, so that every mind shall make the good of self subordinate to the general good. None ever taught that all questions of right and wrong, or what is for the best, are to be decided with reference to the risks and dangers of a future life. None ever presented communion with, and the care, sympathy, sacrifices, and example of a “long-suffering” [pg 201] Creator, as motives to secure virtuous self-sacrifice from his creatures. If all this is taught by revelations from God in the Bible, it is what was never taught by any other religion yet known on earth.
In the history of the heathen world, we find anxious inquiries on these subjects pressing on every thoughtful spirit. Who made this world with its profound and ceaseless sorrows? Are there contending deities, and are the malignant powers in the ascendant? If there be one supreme Creator of all, is he propitious or hostile to a race so guilty as ours? Does he feel any pity or sympathy for our profound ignorance, our infinite sorrows? Can we do any thing to gain his help in our darkness and misery? Where do we go when we die? Does our short and painful span of being end in eternal night, or are we to go on in another career of similar suffering and change? When we lay our beloved ones in the grave, shall we ever meet them again, or is “the only proper utterance of a broken heart, vale, vale, in eternum vale?”