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They say that the Upanishads are Sruti — that is, revealed from heaven — but of course they were no more revealed than a ' ' Thus said the Lord ' ' in the Pentateuch. (15) Exodus 33, v. 11. (16) It was the same old dispute 2400 years ago in India, that we find in America. There were the Addharya Brahmans, tha Tittviya, the Khandokas and others. Here we have Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, Unitarians, etc., and like the Brahmans, they all claim the right path. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 165 the students, if each Brahman teacher claimed that his special school taught the true saving path to a union with Brahma (God). "Yes," said Vasettha, "they teach different paths, but each one claims his path to be the true one." "Have any of those teachers versed in the three Vedas," asked Buddha, "ever seen Brahma face to face?" "They do not claim to have seen him," re- plied Vasettha. "Do any of the Brahmans back seven generations, say : 'We know Brahma, we have seen Brahma, we know where Brahma is?' " he asked. (17) "No, they do not, even up to the seventh generation, say that they have ever seen Brahma face to face," replied Vasettha. "Even so," said Buddha, "nor did the Rishis of old, the authors of the Veda, which the Brahmans now carefully intone and recite — even they did not pretend to know whence or where Brahma is. How, then, can they say we will teach the strait path that leads to Brahma?" "Impossible!" replied Vasettha, "and that being so, it follows that the Brahmans talk foolishly. That which the Brahmans do not know, having never seen Brahma ; is it not like a string of blind men, the blind teacher leading the blind student?" Jesus had a sim- ilar saying, that if the blind lead the blind, they would both fall in the ditch. (18) (17) Brahma, the eternal, self -existent, is said to be imper- sonal. Tevigga, Vol. 11, Sacred Books of the East, p. 172. (18) Matt. 15:14. l66 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES "Even if they could see Brahma, as we see the sun in the heavens, can they," asked Buddha, "point out a safe path that leads to the sun?" The colloquy then proceeds on the supposition that if a man should say he loves and longs for the most beautiful woman in India, yet when asked of her family and her name, her complexion, and where she dwells, he knows nothing about her, how then could, or how can he love her? (19) Buddha then proceeds to illustrate that one, to pos- sess moral excellence, must practice all the qualities which lead up to that estate: that to pray for the impossible will not avail. "This river where we stand," said he, "is full to the brim, and here comes a man who desires to cross over. He invokes the further bank to come to him. Will the bank come by his entreaty ? Certainly not. These Brahmans invoke Soma, and Varuna, and Prajapati, but they omit prac- ticing those things which after the death of the body will unite them to Brahma." Jesus preached the same doctrine when He said: "He that bringeth forth good fruit shall enter the kingdom." (20) (19) This question has a deeper meaning than is apparent on the surface. Did Gotama intend to impress us with the idea that, never having seen God, and as no mortal ever did see God, how then can we love Him, any more than the Hindu who had never seen the woman? We may fear Him — but love and fear are two vastly different things. (20) Matt. 7, V. 16 to 22. See also Tevigga-Sutta, Vol. 11, p. 180, Saered Books of the East. CHAPTER XV Man a Protoplasm : The Corrected Genesis. Section i. It is not a very entrancing thought when we reflect that our remote ancestors, the Hindus, seven or eight thousand, and, more hkely, ten thou- sand years ago, were worshiping the sun, the moon, the clouds and the winds. If the Aryans were in the Punjab (i) and on the Ganges ten thousand years ago, that is only a small point of time to Him "whose day is as a thousand years," (2) This earth, as we have said elsewhere, is old, and no little pent-up six thousand years doth hedge it in. Man at his coming was a naked savage (3) ; not as well equipped in his first years to meet the wants of life, as the low-browed monkey. The whole world was man's "Garden of Eden," and he is slowly dressing it of thorns and (1) The Punjab includes all that vast country watered by six rivers (originally seven rivers) in northwestern India. In the last 1,600 years Saravasti has gone dry. (2) "A thousand years are as one day with the Lord"; Second Peter, eh. 3, v. 8, Psalms 90, v. 4. (3) Even Genesis (Gen. 3, v. 7) says he was naked, and he is ■omewhat savage even yet. 167 i68 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES thistles (errors and sins), even although the "Lord cursed it." (4) When man came, the world was a mystery to him, and it is a mystery still. Does its author want man to prais^ Him? Does man want the ant or the worm to praise him? What good, forsooth, will it do the man to have the worm or the ant say : "Great and marvelous are thy works, O man ! Thou are the most wonderful being beneath the skies. Have mercy on us, O man!" Yet for all these thousands of years man has been talking to a being far greater and wiser in comparison than man is beyond the worm of the dust. But neither from the vaulted skies, nor from the caverns of the earth, has there ever yet been a sure verbal response. We know not where or when man first began to pray, but we are reasonably certain that it was not in Egypt, or Palestine, nor yet in Ur of the Chaldees, or in Babylon. It was a long journey from there, and in a warm climate. If the cradle of the race can ever be found we shall there find man first upon his knees. It was certainly in the far East; but how far East? Was it on the shores of the Indian Ocean? It could not have been North of the Caspian, unless great climatic changes have since taken place. In a high, cold altitude man would not survive the first winter, even if the Lord should make him a coat of skins, and clothe him. (5) (4) Gen. 3, v. 17. (5) Gen. 3, v. 21. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 169 If he came here by the evolutionary process, the atom from which he sprung (we all came from atoms) must somewhere in its travels have encoun- tered a moral principle which has clung to man, and seems to have slowly grown during all his long pil- grimage. While it is true that the original forms of all or- ganisms are one and the same, it is also true that from that one form all forms, high and low, the snail, the worm, and man, are developed. It may not be an in- spirational thought, but it is nevertheless the fact, that the snail and the worm were our equals, to all appear- ances, when we were in the embryonic state. Dr. Pritchard, in his natural history of man, tells us that "the organized world presents no contrasts and resemblances ' more remarkable than those which we discover on comparing mankind with the inferior tribes. That creatures should exist so nearly approach- ing to each other in all particulars of their physical structure, and yet differing so immeasurably in their endowments and capabilities, would be a fact hard to believe if it were not manifest to our observation." The differences are everywhere striking, and they are never contemplated without wonder by those who, in the study of anatomy and physiology, are first made aware how near is man in his physical constitution to the brutes. In all the principles of his internal structure, in the composition and functions of his parts, man is but an animal. lyo A QUESTION OF MIRACLES The lord of the earth, who contemplates the eternal order of the universe, and aspires to communion with its invisible maker, is a being composed of the same materials and framed on the same general principles, as the creatures which he has tamed and trained to be the servile instruments of his will, or which he slays for his daily food. The points of resemblance are innumerable, and they extend to the most recondite arrangements of the mechanism which maintains instrumentally, the phy- sical life of the body; which brings forward its early developments, and admits, after a given period, its decay ; and by means of which is prepared a succession of similar beings destined to perpetuate the race.