unexplained. Of some of them, the author claims to have no knowledge.
Others he does not make clear; but, "take it for all in all," the hook
will probably give the reader a very great number of suggestions. I am
heterodox enough to say that if the idea of a personal God, the Father
of all, were superadded to the system (or perhaps I ought to say were
substituted for the idea of absorption into Nirvana), there would be
nothing in Buddhism contradictory of Christianity. What orthodox
Christians of the present day and of this country believe with regard to
eternal punishment is a question about which they do not altogether
agree among themselves. Whether the so-called hell is a place of
everlasting degradation, is a point on which those who cannot deny to
each other the name of Christian are not in accord. Why, then, should it
be thought heretical to maintain that the future world of _rewards_
is _also_ not eternal? I believe that the Christian Scriptures use
the same words with reference to both conditions--

"[Greek: To pyr to aiônion:--eis xôên aiônion.]"

The Buddhist denial of the eternity of the condition next following the
separation of soul and body cannot, I think, be pronounced a subversion
of Christian doctrine by any one who will admit that the Greek word
[Greek: aiônios] _may_ mean something less than endless.

Of the antiquity of Buddhistic philosophy, I have already spoken
indirectly. Buddha came upon the earth only 643 B.C. But he was not the
founder of the system. His purpose in reincarnating himself at that time
was to reform the lives of men. Doubtless he made many explanations of
doctrine, perhaps gave some new teaching; but the philosophy comes down
to us from, at least, the times of the fourth root-race, the men of
Atlantis.