uddhism, but the
reverse. He was a bishop of the Church of Rome, believing always that
his faith contained all truth, and that the Buddha was but a 'pretended
saviour,' his teachings based on 'capital and revolting errors,' and
marked with an 'inexplicable and deplorable eccentricity.' Bishop
Bigandet was in no sympathy with Buddhism, but its avowed foe, desirous
of undermining and destroying its influence over the hearts of men, and
yet this is the way he ends his chapter:

'There is in that religious body--the monks--a latent principle of
vitality that keeps it up and communicates to it an amount of strength
and energy that has hitherto maintained it in the midst of wars,
revolutionary and political, convulsions of all descriptions. Whether
supported or not by the ruling power, it has remained always firm and
unchanged. It is impossible to account satisfactorily for such a
phenomenon, unless we find a clear and evident cause of such
extraordinary vitality, a cause independent of ordinary occurrences of
time and circumstances, a cause deeply rooted in the very soul of the
populations that exhibit before the observer this great and striking
religious feature.

'That cause appears to be the strong religious sentiment, the firm
faith, that pervades the mass of Buddhists. The laity admire and
venerate the religious, and voluntarily and cheerfully contribute to
their maintenance and welfare. From its ranks the religious body is
constantly recruited. There is hardly a man that has not been a member
of the fraternity for a certain period of time.

'Surely such a general and continued impulse could not last long unless
it were maintained by a powerful religious connection.

'The members of the order preserve, at least exteriorly, the decorum of
their profession. The rules and regulations are tolerably well
observed; the grades of hierarchy are maintained with scrupulous
exactitude. The life of the religious is one of restraint and perpetual
control. He is denied all sorts of pleasures and diversions. How could
such a system of self-denial ever be maintained, were it not for the
belief which the Rahans have in the merits that they amass by following
a course of life which, after all, is repugnant to Nature? It cannot be
denied that human motives often influence both the laity and the
religious, but, divested of faith and the sentiments supplied by even a
false belief, their action could not produce in a lasting and
perseve