This prophet, the Buddha, was rejected by all the higher castes and he died, having made but little way. But his disciples spread his religion widely. Amongst his own people it never attained great strength, and in time it died away and disappeared. There are no Buddhists in Oude, and, with perhaps a slight exception, there are no Buddhists at all in India. But it has spread far to the east, and is now in one form or another the accepted faith of nearly all people east of the Bay of Bengal, and also of Ceylon. It never spread west.
I do not say that Christianity and Buddhism are the same, for although in some ways, especially in conduct, their teaching is almost identical, and in others—such as Heaven and Nirvana—though differently expressed, the idea is almost the same, yet in certain theories they differ very greatly. Yet, however they may differ, the above parallel cannot but strike one as extraordinary. Indeed, the parallel might have been very largely augmented, but it suffices for the purpose of this chapter; and that is to enquire why each teacher's doctrine was rejected by his own people and accepted by others.
It is no answer to say that no one is a prophet in his own country. All the Jewish prophets, from Moses to Isaiah, were prophets in their own country. Christ alone was not. Mahommed was a prophet to the Arabs, Zoroaster to the Persians, Confucius and Laotze to the Chinese. All teachers of Hinduism have been native born Hindus. In Buddhist countries it is the same. Luther was a prophet to the Germans, Loyola to the Spaniards. The rule is otherwise. A prophet is never a prophet to any but his own people, except the two greatest Prophets in the world, Christ and Buddha. They alone were rejected by their own and accepted elsewhere. They almost divide the world between them. Hinduism, from which Buddhism arose, still exists untouched by either; Judaism, from which Christianity arose, and its near kin Mahommedanism, exist untouched by either; but most of the rest of the world is either Christian or Buddhist. These are very astonishing facts, and must have some very strong reasons to cause them. The question is, What are the reasons, and are they the same in each case? Was it a similar cause that occasioned such similar effects? What quality was it in the Jews and Hindus that led them to reject their prophets, and what are the qualities in the converted nations that led them to accept these prophets?
It might seem at first as if the clue was contained in the first sentence of each paragraph, that the reason was because both Jews and Hindus, especially the higher caste Hindus, were warrior nations. The rule of life preached by each teacher was absolutely against all that they had revered so far, hence that each rejected it. The fact, of course, is true. Each nation had up to the coming of the Teacher learned a rule of life hopelessly in contrast to the new teaching. The ideals of Christ and Buddha were absolutely opposed to those a fierce, warlike, exclusive people could maintain. They could not accept them without throwing to the winds all their past. This is true, but is it an explanation? It is certainly not a full one. The Jews were warriors, bitter, terrible, ruthless fighters, and they rejected Christ. But they are no longer a nation of warriors, and they still reject Him.
The world has never seen keener soldiers than those of western Europe, but these nations accept Him.
The Hindu warrior caste are warriors to the bitter end. They rejected Buddha, but so did many peoples of India; the Bengalees, for instance, who are not fighters.
Where can you find stronger warrior spirit than has always existed in Japan? Yet Buddhism is the prevailing religion there. It is evident, I think, that this explanation will not suffice. It may in addition be asserted that the men of Latin nations are usually frankly atheistic, and the Teutonic nations, though theoretically Christian, yet practically when they want to fight they forget Christ and fall back to the Jehovah of the Jews. The Puritans and the Boers are cases in point. They get their fighting faith out of the Old Testament, not the New. But still they accept Christ, and though they may find it impossible, like all nations, to follow His teaching, they do not reject it, or deny it. With Buddhism in the further East the parallel does not last, because Buddhism in ethical teaching stands alone. The Buddhist who wants to fight cannot fall back on the original faith. He has simply to go without a faith at all. He has not the advantage of a double set of conduct, one of which can always be trusted to fit anything he wants to do He has to go without a faith when he fights. Still he does so.
I confess that for a long time I seemed to find no answer, and at length it came not through studying out this question, but in observing other phenomena of religion altogether.
To one coming to Europe after years in the East and visiting the churches nothing is more striking than the enormous preponderance of women there. It is immaterial whether the church be in England or in France, whether it be Anglican or Roman Catholic or Dissenter. The result is always the same. Women outnumber the men as two to one, as three to one, sometimes as ten to one. Even of the men that are there, how many go there from other motives than personal desire to hear the service? Men go because their wives take them, boys go with their mothers or sisters, old men with their daughters. Professional men are there because it would injure them among their women clients to be absent. Women go because they desire to do so; nine out of ten even of these few men who do go are taken by their women folk. They admit it readily. And more, when they are away from these women they do not enter the churches. It is borne in upon an observer, especially an observer who has been long enough away from Europe to become depolarised, to what an enormous extent the observance of religious duty in Europe among Christian nations is due to women. It is they only who care for, who are in full sympathy with the teaching of Christ; for men when they are religious, and in certain cases they are so, take their religion of conduct much more from the Old Testament than the New.