act, which, eighteen centuries ago, the Apostle
Paul delivered on the Areopagus at Athens, "Whom ye ignorantly worship,
Him declare I unto you," one that cannot, more often than it does, find a
place on the lips of our missionaries of to-day? Is the position a useless
one to take, that both the faiths of Jesus Christ and of Buddha agree in
this, that either has for its object the amelioration of man's lot, here
and hereafter, and his release from the curse of suffering; only, as we
believe, with this great difference, that the founder of Christianity was
possessed of resources to which Sakya-muni laid no claim? These are
questions which were constantly presenting themselves to my mind during my
visit to Japan; but they are questions also which I heard asked more than
once by men who had closely studied the whole subject and were deeply
interested in mission work. But whatever the true answer to these
questions be, of this we may be certain: that by no reckless denunciation
of a creed, of the very elements of which the denouncer is content to be
in ignorance, will any victory of Christ's Cross be achieved. Be the
errors and shortcomings of Buddhism what they may,--and we must, to be
honest, pronounce them in our judgment to be many and great,--it is, at
least, a system of very great antiquity, in whose strength thousands of
millions of our fellow-creatures have lived and died, both better and
happier. Men cannot be expected lightly to abandon their allegiance to
such a faith as this, nor would it be to their credit if they did; while
in Christianity, even when faithfully represented, there is very much
calculated to perplex and estrange one who has been trained in the tenets
of Buddhism. Moreover, however little he may agree with them, the Buddhist
holds that the religious convictions of others are entitled to respect,
and that their feelings should never be wounded, if this can be avoided;
it is only natural that he, in his turn, should be quickly alienated by
unsympathetic treatment. I was told by an English resident of long
standing that infidelity is largely on the increase in Japan, especially
among the men of the upper and middle classes; and that among the causes
of this was certainly to be reckoned the contemptuous and merely
destructive attitude towards Buddhism, with which some--let us hope they
are the very few--would think to serve the cause of Jesus Christ. "Depend
upon it," it was said to me, "it is irreligion