The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-01-25 00:00:00

BUDDHISM IN ST. PAUL'S.

The Rev. Canon Li Idon delivered the first of two
lectures on " Jesus Christ and Buddha" on Tuesday
to a congregation of men in St. Paul's Cathedral. It
might.' he rail, at first be thought that his subject—
the ehoracteristies of Buddhism—was siimswhat need-
lessly remote from the practical interests of our evun-
try and generation. But, not to insist upon the ad-
vantages of our intellectual change if air, the subject
was not so far removed from practical Interests as
might be supposed. No one who believed in Pr 1-
vidence could imagine that we English, who had
won and still held the Empire of India, had
been introduce I to such high destinies for nothing
or only for commercial or political ends, and as soon
as the rye sought sign of any higher horizon than
that which might havesatisfied a Plitenician or Roman
conqiieror, it was at once felt that the greatest interest
ninst ettach to the mental and religmus history of the
highly-gi,ted rams with which we were now so closely
connected. Buddhism WAS for two centuries ex-
clusively an Indian religion. Although driven from
Central India five centuries ago, it still lingered in
the north, beneath the shadow of the Ilimalayaa
in Nepaul, and further north-west in Cashmere ;
it wits still vigorous in the south and in our own
isiand of Ceylon. It did not simply fringe the Indian
Penimm'a to the north awl east; it dominated
in those dense populations which were so im-
pervious to European enterprise—Burmah and
Siam. Tonquin and Cochin China were Buddhist.
Buddhism denominated thrdughout a great part of
China and io Japan ; it was the religion of Thibet ; it
was still found in Tartary and Mongolia. If not to
political instincts as Englishmen, at least, it must
power'ully appeal to our human, not to speak of our
Christaip, instincts. A religion which had lived on for
four and twenty centuries end which it was probable
counted more vatoriett at ;his moment than any other
on the (see of the globe, was A ru'.ject of study to
which men need not be coaxed by any merely national
Interest. He then noticed some of the dill ireneen and
, points of resrmtlance betwei.n Christianity and Bud-
ilhism. The latter was an attempted reform of, and
I was a revolt against, Brahminism—an older historical
religi tn. which had been for many centuries in posses-
sion of India.

After tracing the progress of events which had led
to a more careful and thorough study of the religions
of our Ernpii e in the East. Dr. Liddou gave an in-
teresting account of the Vedas—books, as the word
s;guified, of the highest knowledge--which stood at
the head of Indian literature. How Brahminism, an
elaborate system of poiytheism, priesthood, and caote,
superseded the primitive Indian life and religion be
ha I describe I, we could as yet rather guess than say.
Having glinced at the growth of caste and the types
of thought which might be remarked by those
who studied the change which hat ovurred,
he gave with some detail the hlstory of Buddha.
Doctrinally, Buddhiem attempted to provide an
eocape for the human soul from the miserhs of trans
migration to another both' after death, upon which the
Brahminical cree4in4oted and itclit,ithiai, D,Ok by cloy-
ing transmigration sltogether, but by pointing to the
poaAihility of lielt.anuillilation, through costeneilation
and v rtue, is the Nil, aim. In concludirg, Dr. Lddo.,
aid it was iwpoaaiblo not to re4.ogoiae to the founder
of Buddhism 011 b of the moot interesting and brautiiul
figures to be band in the muds of Paganism,

Here was a young man, born in • happy home, born
of a just and generous father and a loving mother,
cradle 1 in wea'th and luxury, weloomcd to life
by all that it had best to offer in the way of out-
ward advantage—the heir of a noble name, the heir of
a throne. He was virtuous; he was intellectual; he
was good looking; he was popu'ar ; he married a
young wife, who was also pre eminently beautiful and
good; life opened on him, as far as outward b'essings
went, with all the slow and splendour f an Eastern
inortaieg. But his happiness was poisoned b. the
apectacle of the snfferings of those around him—suffer-
into which were too great, too many, too rooted in the
fixed c mditions of human life to !Omit of his relieving
them, and his sense of their sufferings was heightened
by his inherited belief in the transmigration of souls
from body to body--a doctrine which making existence
a curse, made escape from it if possible a blessing. His
thoughts, his studies, his enthusia-ms were thus
grounded in a most unselfish generous impulse, and
when he renounced his home and his crown, and his
wealth and his power to become a beggar and a soli-
tary, to meditate amid self-imposed hardships upon the
ultimate secrets of human destiny—we should do better,
perhaps, in admiring the loftiness of his motive than
in wonlering at the results of his career. Clearly
his was a character to which power over the outward
circumstances of his fellows was of little account
in comparison with power to elevate, perhaps to go-
vern, hearts and minds; he belonged to that highest
order of men who think more of the charities of life
than of its outward advantages; more of independence
of conscience than of the law of easy circumstances ;
more of the happiness of multitudes than of personal
privileges and position ; more of the future destinies of
man than of the splendii but transient present. If in
his efforts to admit all to the knowledge which
Brahminism reserved for a fliVeared few, and to modify
the consequences of a doctrine which perhaps inevitably,
he never thought of questioning, he became the victim
of a self-loluding and stupefying ecstasy and the
author of a creed which was a thinly -disguised
Atheism, this must not blind us to his real titles to re-
spectful sympathy. If we measured his failure in
the light of a revelation if absolute truth which
he never heard of, we must admit that his love of such
truth as he hoped to win, and the sacrifices he no
cheerfully and unflinchingly made in order to attain
it, were Christian at least as much as Pagan virtues,
and that it might be-impossible for honest Christians
to think over the career of this heathen Prince without
some keen feelings of humiliation and shame. Why
Buddhism succeeded as it did, and how in its concep-
tion of heaven, of life, of destiny, and of conduct it
contrasted with the Faith which dated from Calvary
and Pentecost would be the subject of another lecture.