apen day or a misfortune, that could not be
traced back to our own doings in this or another life ...
Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if--

'Virtue in distress and vice in triumph
Makes atheists of Mankind,'

it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the
great truth that man is himself his own savior as his own
destroyer; that he need not accuse heaven, and the gods,
fates and providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns
in the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember that
bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man to forbear accusing
THAT which 'Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment'--which are
now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great
European nations. The Western Aryans have every nation and
tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their
Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative
irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now
several of them have reached their Iron Age, the _Kali Yuga_,
an age black with horrors. This state will last ... until we
begin acting from within instead of ever following impulses
from without. Until then the only palliative is union and
harmony--a Brotherhood in _actu_ and _altruism_ not simply in
name."

Edwin Arnold, in his wonderful poem, "The Light of Asia," which tells
the story of the Buddha, explains the doctrine of Karma from the
Buddhist standpoint. We feel that our students should become acquainted
with this view, so beautifully expressed, and so we herewith quote the
passages referred to:

"Karma--all that total of a soul
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
The 'self' it wove with woof of viewless time
Crossed on the warp invisible of acts.

* * * * *

"What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
Worse--better--last for first and first for last;
The angels in the heavens of gladness reap
Fruits of a holy past.

"The devils in the underworlds wear out
Deeds that were wicked in an age gone by.
Nothing endures: fair virtues waste with time,
Foul sins grow purged thereby.

"Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won;
Who ruled a king may w