and ablest of these,--the Rev. S. H. Kellogg's _The
Light of Asia and the Light of the World: a Comparison of the Legend, the
Doctrine and the Ethics of the Buddha, with the Story, the Doctrine and
the Ethics of Christ_ (Macmillan, 1885),--I would refer those desirous of
investigating fully the points at issue; contenting myself now with a few
brief observations.

It is, then, important to bear in mind that Sir E. Arnold's poem is
written in the person, and from the stand-point of an imaginary Buddhist.
This is indicated plainly on the title-page, in the preface, and in the
course of the poem itself; and when the book comes to be read by the light
of this explanation, a limitation is cast about much of its more startling
language. To take, for instance, such expressions as "Our Lord,"
"Saviour," "come to save the world," constantly assigned to Buddha in the
course of the poem. However accustomed Christians may be to associate such
terms with One only, and however pained they may feel at their being
referred, under any circumstances and with any restrictions, to another,
still it is obvious that their use becomes less open to objection, when
placed in the mouth of a disciple, singing the praise of his Master,--and
that Master, one who, it can hardly be disputed, wrought no mean work of
deliverance on the earth. Far less admitting of satisfactory explanation
are passages in the book in which we find transferred to Buddha and
Buddhism ideas and language distinctively Christian; the solemn saying of
Simeon to the Holy Mother, "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul
also," and the still more solemn, "It is finished" of the Cross, being
made to supply particularly distressing instances of such treatment.(8)

Or once again: but what I would say now has already been urged by Dr.
Eitel, in words which I cannot do better than quote. "I believe," he says,
"it would be unjust to pick out any of those queer and childish sayings
with which the Buddhist Scriptures and especially popular Buddhist books
abound, and to lead people to imagine that Buddhism is little better than
a string of nonsense. It is even doubtful whether the earliest Buddhist
texts contained such statements at all; for, unlike our Bible, the
Buddhist canon has undergone wholesale textual alterations.... As to the
popular literature of Buddhism, and its absurdities, we might as well
collect those little pamphlets on dreams, on sorcery, on lucky and unlucky
days,