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Yet they prevailed by the power of a Truth, which having every human element of weakness, shewed its strength to be Divine. Nor did the life thus infused into the world cease in any generation. Even now, the same Spirit of God which took possession of Christ's disciples with a wonder-working power, finds an echo in the hearts of thousands both simple and wise, and puts forth in their lives a perpetual witness, that their faith is well- grounded in an ever present Helper. Thus Christ has done, and is doing in the world what Sdkya attempted. One might say that Buddhism went before Christianity as a sort of rude prophecy of the methods by which Truth should conq^uer, or as a tentative groping of mankind in the direction in which Grod was about to open for them a new and living way. You have noticed the resemblances; but do not forget the diflferencea. Remember that we invite you to worship the living Grod ; we PINAL APPEAL TO BUDDHIST SPEAKER. 531 shew you in Christ the way of coming to Him, and promise yon the help of His holy breathing to animate you in treading it. Especially such help will accompany your eflforts in proportion as you become familiar with the life of Jesus, and have your faith in the God whom He reveals strengthened by the witness of His resurrection. The first thing we should do, as Christians, would be to teach your children to read. "Will you so far join us? Then give them any books you have most wholesome. But if your literature contains none so true to history, or so prophetic to the heart of eternal things, then try the effect of our sacred writings, which teach all the good you have, and superadd higher truths, with clearer warrants, and a life of their own. By the Divine blessing on such means I should hope for a purer development of intelligence than the countries which own your doctrine have ever yet seen. It will be something gained, if you only discard your relics, throw your idols to the moles and the bats, and revive your old doctrine, that the law of Heaven should pervade the whole congregation of the people; but if you come so far, I prophesy you will not stop there ; for experience of the truth of Christ so far will lead you on to em- brace thankfully the whole of the salvation which He offers you for this life, and that which is to come. I speak, however, more modestly than perhaps I ought ; since it is only of your own fireewill that you can be persuaded to accept the blessings which God offers you. It is your loss if you reject, and your infinite gain if you believe." " Probably the Saugata will have no objection," here Sad&- nanda interposed, " to accept your doctrine of soul as distinct from the material world, and as surviving at least the present forms of things, if not their primary atoms ; for so far you coun- tenance somewhat the distinction he admits between intelligence and nature. The notion, however, which he entertains of an extreme quietude as the proper attribute of Deity, and the cor- respondent apathy which he consistently regards as the highest goal to be reached by the human intelligence, will make him 34—2 532 SA'NKHYA CONCEPTION OF PROGRESS, slow to admit your doctrine of an abiding individuality as the necessary destiny of every immortal soul. In this respect then I am able to approach you more nearly ; for I conceive our souls to have each its personal being, and to be free from danger of extinction. I can also agree with you so far as to think a large accession to our knowledge may be derivable from your sacred records, and I think it reasonable to study them. But it is not yet clear to me that they have not much of that character of temporariness, which I have ventured to ascribe to our Indian scriptures or S^stras in general. You would not, I suppose, permit me to say, that there is something popular and economic in many of their teachings; though indeed Christians admit that their great Teacher spoke many things in parables, and I do not see why some things intended perhaps as parables, and so understood by some, may not have been innocently taken as literal by others ; but at any rate you admit a just distinction between tlie religious element in any sacred books and the natu- ral framework of human associations and of limitations to the knowledge of any particular age. Even if you were unwilling to draw such a distinction, it would necessarily follow frt>m what you have said of the nature of that Truth which is properly Divine, or which saves the soul. For the Holy Spirit, you said, teaches men what concerns the being of God, and tlieir own relations to Him, their falling from Him by sin into all evil, and their need of being restored, as well as the fact of such redemp- tion. Nor have I ever heard of any devout person's anywhere holding, that men are more likely to obtain everlasting bliss from having the most exact knowledge of commonplace facts, whether ancient or modem. But if a particular kind of know- ledge does not save men, its absence cannot ruin them ; nor can it therefore be a just argument against the value of any sacred writings. But I confess myself to go somewhat farther in the same direction. It appears to me that religion itself admits of improvement. Hence all our school contend that things even in the Vedas are temporary, or even blameable ; such as the in- PROGRESS SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL. 533 cantations permitted against human life, and the shedding of blood in sacrifice. We therefore urge on men the duty of culti- vating knowledge, and thereby developing humanity; and we think that the religious sentiments will then share in the general improvement. You appeared to me not blind to the force of such considerations, when applied to the religious literature of the Hindds. But dare you equally face the consequences from them, when they are applied to that of the Hebrews ? If you cannot deny, that bloody sacrifices are enjoined in the earlier books of your sacred volume, but forbidden in the later ones, your Bible appears subject to the same law of growth and de- velopment as other scriptures elsewhere. But as the letter is altered for the better, so I conceive the spirit had improved. Religion then becomes a thing not independent of the general progress of the human mind. May I not add, that the S^khya preference of knowledge to blind faith receives also a justifica- tion ? For not only science seems to outgrow the popular con- ception of things, which would be naturally embodied even in the most faultless or divinely-dictated religious book, if it was to serve as a vehicle for instructing men in rude times ; but also reason seems to outgrow faith, if even she does so, by aid of an education to which faith ministers; and so our conceptions at length burst the very mould in which they were cast. On the whole, then, without wearying you here by reverting to pecu- liarities before explained, I am inclined to believe in a certain law of progress, and abide by the Sdnkhya esteem of right knowledge as the true liberation of the soul." " But since you talk of progress," answered Blancombe, "where has your school got to? Is it moving forward now? If it satisfied the deepest convictions of men, it would have a growing hold on multitudes ; and this is a test which your own theory of science renders appropriate. Whereas I have recently learned, that in all India the adherents of your school are very few indeed. Men have found your system wanting ; and such a verdict of men's conscience corresponds with the failure of all 534 FINAL ANSWER TO SA'NKHYAST SPEAKER. similar speculations elsewhere, whether found among the sensual sceptics of Rome when her simpler faith had grown cold in her, or among the Sadducees of Judeea, or among those of the modems who have criticism to destroy without faith to build. Mere scepticism has never alone answered the questions which vex man's heart, and never will. Indeed, Almighty God has so graciously cared for the least of His children, that He scatters evidences of His eternal power and godhead in forms which childlike and pure minds can apprehend: but if such better instincts, which by a sort of logic of the heart and conscience grow into faith, are stifled, it is not possible to supply their place by such a form of rationalism as requires demonstration of things which belong to faith, and which indeed we naturally believe.