ious
order to save the soul? Why seek by special acts of piety, self-denial,
and separation from the world that which comes sufficiently through the
usual sacraments of the church? The more we examine this subject, the more
we shall see that the whole monastic system of the Church of Rome is an
_included Protestantism_, or a Protestantism within the church.

Many of the reformers before the Reformation were monks. Savonarola, St.
Bernard, Luther himself, were monks. From the monasteries came many of the
leaders of the Reformation. The Protestant element in the Romish Church
was shut up in monasteries during many centuries, and remained there as a
foreign substance, an alien element included in the vast body. When a
bullet, or other foreign substance, is lodged in the flesh, the vital
powers go to work and build up a little wall around it, and shut it in. So
when Catholics came who were not satisfied with a merely sacramental
salvation, and longed for a higher life, the sagacity of the Church put
them together in convents, and kept them by themselves, where they could
do no harm. One of the curious homologons of history is this repetition in
Europe of the course of events in Asia. Buddhism was, for many centuries,
tolerated in India in the same way. It took the form of a monasticism
included in Brahmanism, and remained a part of the Hindoo religion. And
so, when the crisis came and the conflict began, this Hindoo Protestantism
maintained itself for a long time in India, as Lutheranism continued for a
century in Italy, Spain, and Austria. But it was at last driven out of its
birthplace, as Protestantism was driven from Italy and Spain; and now only
the ruins of its topes, its temples, and its monasteries remain to show
how extensive was its former influence in the midst of Brahmanism.

Sec. 2. Extent of Buddhism. Its Scriptures.

Yet, though expelled from India, and unable to maintain its control over
any Aryan race, it has exhibited a powerful propagandist element, and so
has converted to its creed the majority of the Mongol nations. It embraces
nearly or quite (for statistics here are only guesswork)[98] three hundred
millions of human beings. It is the popular religion of China; the state
religion of Thibet, and of the Birman Empire; it is the religion of Japan,
Siam, Anam, Assam, Nepaul, Ceylon, in short, of nearly the whole of
Eastern Asia.

Concerning this vast religion we have had, until recently, very few