ou appear to possess a pair of good legs,
which will carry you over the ground at a rate sufficient to keep up
with me. Is that your dog? He is a fine beast. I must make his
acquaintance. Now, wish the old hermit good-bye. Salaam to him. That
will do. Come along.

"A fine old man that," he continued. "It is a pity he should be a
priest of so absurd a faith. Do you know anything about Buddhism? The
Buddhists believe in the transmigration of souls (the doctrine of the
_metempsychosis_, as it is called). In that respect they are like the
followers of Brahma. It is doubtful, indeed, which is the older faith
of the two--whether Brahminism is a corruption of Buddhism, or whether
Buddhism is an attempt to restore Brahminism to its original purity.
Buddhism has existed for upwards of two thousand years; it is the chief
religion of the Chinese, and that indeed of upwards of one-third of the
human race at the present day. Buddhists are practically atheists.
Buddha Gotama, to whom all Buddhists look up, was, they believe, the
incarnation of excellence. They fancy that everything was made by
chance, and that Buddha was only infinitely superior to all other
beings, and therefore that he is a fit object of admiration and
contemplation, and that the height of happiness is to be absorbed in
some way, after having been purified by many changes, into his being.
They believe in the perfectibility of man, and therefore their great aim
is to become moral and virtuous, while the employment of their priests
is chiefly to contemplate virtue, and to inculcate its precepts and
practice. Indeed, it may be said to be less a form of religion than a
school of philosophy. Its worship appeals father to the reason than to
the imagination, through the instrumentality of rites and parades; and,
though ceremonies and festivals are introduced, the more enlightened are
anxious to explain that these are either innovations of the priesthood,
or in honour of some of the monarchs who have proved patrons and
defenders of the faith. No people, perhaps, are so destitute of all
_warmth_ and fervour in their religion as the followers of Buddha. They
believe because their ancestors believed, and they look with the most
perfect complacency on the doctrines of the various sects who surround
them. As Sir Emmerson Tennent says--`The fervid earnestness of
Christianity, even in its most degenerate form, the fanatical enthusiasm
of Islam, the proud exclus