st everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of
Christianity is to be found in Buddhism: images, pictures,
lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside
shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils,
retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders,
habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and
priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation,
pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics
and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., etc.,
etc."[21]

Nevertheless, these resemblances are almost wholly superficial, and have
little or nothing to do with genuine religion. Such matters are of
aesthetic and of commercial, rather than of spiritual, interest. They
concern priestcraft and vulgar superstition rather than truth and
righteousness. "In point of dogma a whole world of thought separates
Buddhism from every form of Christianity. Knowledge, enlightenment, is
the condition of Buddhistic grace, not faith. Self-perfectionment is the
means of salvation, not the vicarious sufferings of a Redeemer. Not
eternal life is the end and active participation in unceasing prayer and
praise, but absorption into Nirvana (Jap. Nehan), practical
annihilation."[22] At certain points, the metaphysic of Buddhism is so
closely like that of Christian theology, that a connection on reciprocal
exchange of ideas is not only possible but probable. In their highest
thinking,[23] the sincere Christian and Buddhist approach each other in
their search after truth.

The key-word of Buddhism is Ingwa, which means law or fate, the chain of
cause and effect in which man is found, atheistic "evolution applied to
ethics," the grinding machinery of a universe in which is no
Creator-Father, no love, pity or heart. If the cry of the human spirit
has compelled the makers of Buddhist theology to furnish a goddess of
mercy, it is but one subordinate being among many. If a boundlessly
compassionate Amida is thought out, it is an imaginary being. The symbol
of Buddhism is the wheel of the law, which revolves as mercilessly as
ceaselessly.[24]

The key-word of Christianity is love, and its message is grace. Its
symbol is the cross, and its sacrament the supper, in token of the
infinite love of the Father who wrote his revelation in a human life.
The resemblances between the religions of Gautama and of Jesus, are
purely superficial. They appea