And so it stands in all three manuscripts, and in the printed edition which he himself superintended. His meaning was, "The inevitable Hour awaits everything. It stands there, waiting the boast of Heraldry," etc. But his editors, misled by his inverted style, supposed that it was the gifts of Heraldry, Power, Beauty, etc., that were waiting, and therefore corrected what they thought Gray's bad grammar, and printed the word "await." But so they destroyed the meaning. These things were not waiting at all for the dread hour; they were enjoying themselves, careless of its approach. But "the hour" was waiting for them. Gray's original reading has been restored in the last editions.
In tracing the development of this fine poem, we see it gradually improving under his careful touch, till it becomes a work of high art. In some poets—Wordsworth, for example—inspiration is at its maximum, and art at its minimum. In Gray, I think, inspiration was at its minimum, and art at its maximum.
[ RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL]
[AFFINITIES OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY][5]
It has long been known that many analogies exist between Buddhism and Christianity. The ceremonies, ritual, and rites of the Buddhists strikingly resemble those of the Roman Catholic Church. The Buddhist priests are monks. They take the same three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience which are binding on those of the Roman Church. They are mendicants, like the mendicant orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. They are tonsured; use strings of beads, like the rosary, with which to count their prayers; have incense and candles in their worship; use fasts, processions, litanies, and holy water. They have something akin to the adoration of saints; repeat prayers in an unknown tongue; have a chanted psalmody with a double choir; and suspend the censer from five chains. In China, some Buddhists worship the image of a virgin, called the Queen of Heaven, having an infant in her arms, and holding a cross. In Thibet the Grand Lamas wear a mitre, dalmatica, and cope, and pronounce a benediction on the laity by extending the right hand over their heads. The Dalai-Lama resembles the Pope, and is regarded as the head of the Church. The worship of relics is very ancient among the Buddhists, and so are pilgrimages to sacred places.
Besides these resemblances in outward ceremonies, more important ones appear in the inner life and history of the two religions. Both belong to those systems which derive their character from a human founder, and not from a national tendency; to the class which contains the religions of Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mohammed, and not to that in which the Brahmanical, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Greek, and Roman religions are found. Both Buddhism and Christianity are catholic, and not ethnic; that is, not confined to a single race or nation, but by their missionary spirit passing beyond these boundaries, and making converts among many races. Christianity began among the Jews as a Semitic religion, but, being rejected by the Jewish nation, established itself among the Aryan races of Europe. In the same way Buddhism, beginning among an Aryan people—the Hindoos—was expelled from Hindostan, and established itself among the Mongol races of Eastern Asia. Besides its resemblances to the Roman Catholic side of Christendom, Buddhism has still closer analogies with the Protestant Church. Like Protestantism, it is a reform, which rejects a hierarchal system and does away with a priestly caste. Like Protestantism, it has emphasized the purely humane side of life, and is a religion of humanity rather than of piety. Both the Christian and Buddhist churches teach a divine incarnation, and both worship a God-man.