Wonder

and scorn may be expre ed that he should leave the fold to follow the priestly fallacies of other creeds. But Buddhists are careful that none should stray through ignorance, though they all hold that “ it is presumptuous and unwarrantable in view of the dark secrets which envelope life... to set up each his individual opinion, with dogmatic certainty, as the only true form, and the only one that can save” (The Barman, p. 174). No doubt in consequence of the belief that every Buddhist is personally responsible for his own religious state, and the feeling that only he can help himself, these monks seem to have little concern in the spiritual condition of the laity, or in the conversion of strangers. They have been taught from youth that each must judge for himself. They have Gotama as their great example. From childhood they have known that they must follow him. His images are ever with them—not to adore, but to remind them of his good works in hours of temptation, They know that the pure in thought will reach Nibban, and that not even the great spirit of evil (Maha-Nat) can conquer him who has Kan, or “surplus merit,” surviving from his past life or lives. [The reproach of indifference does not of course apply to those zealous leaders in Barmah, and Ceylon, who are now founding the “Young Man’s Buddhist A ociation,” and the ‘Temperance A ociations,” which are directed against drink: who are also sending mi ionaries to Europe and America to teach Right Life. But, as one of their preachers said, “what I have said ill is the product of mine own ignorance”; and the world that respects their good work cannot be expected to be much interested in the story of Buddha’s throwing an elephant by the tail for five miles. See rather the sermon on Karuna or Love, by Upasaka Chas. 396