remained faithful to the Founder's exclusion of all such conceptions as being, substance, and the like, others began to interpret the person of the Buddha in terms of the Absolute, and identified him with the Eternal and the Self-Existent, who from time to time for the welfare of the world took on himself the semblance of humanity, and appeared to be born, to attain Enlightenment, and die. The great aim of the deliverance of all sentient beings from error, suffering, and guilt, expressed itself further in the association with him of numerous other holy forms sharing the same purpose of the world's salvation.

Among these was the Buddha Amitâbha, the Buddha of Boundless Light,[1] who had made a wondrous vow in virtue of which a blessed future of righteousness and joy in the Western Paradise was secured for all who put their trust in him. Carried into China, this devotion acquired great popularity, and centuries later it passed into Japan. There, while Europe was sending its warriors to win back from the Crescent the city of the Cross, while Bernard and Francis and Dominic were awakening new enthusiasm for the monastic life, two famous teachers, Honen (1133-1212) and Shin-ran (1173-1262), developed the doctrine of "salvation by faith." Honen was the only son of a military chief who died of a wound inflicted by an enemy. On his deathbed he enjoined the boy never to seek revenge, and bade him become a monk for the spiritual enlightenment both of his father and his father's foe. So the lad passed in due time into one of the great Buddhist monasteries on mount Hiei. Long years of laborious study followed, till in 1175 he reached the conviction that faith in Amida[2] was the true way of salvation. A deep sense of human sinfulness and the belief in an All-Merciful Deliverer were the essential elements of his religion. Three emperors became his pupils, and his life, compiled by imperial order after his death, resembles that of a mediæval Christian saint. Visions of Amida and of the holy teachers of the past were vouchsafed to him. He preached—like another St. Francis—to the serpents and the birds. His person was mysteriously transfigured, and a wondrous light filled his dwelling.

[1] Also called Amitâyus, the Buddha of Boundless Life.

[2] The Japanese form of the Sanskrit Amitâbha.

His disciple Shin-ran carried the doctrine of his master yet a little farther. Filled with adoring gratitude to the Buddha of Boundless Light, who, as the deliverer, was also the Buddha of Boundless Life, he argued that infinite mercy and infinite wisdom must belong to him; and these in their turn implied the power to give effect to his great purpose. He passed from village to village through the Eastern provinces, rousing enthusiasm by the hymns into which he wrought his new faith. They are still sung in the temples at the present day. But whereas Honen had recognised a value in good works, and had enjoined the duty of constant repetition of the sacred name of Amida, Shin-ran insisted that all element of "self-exertion" must be purged away, and faith in the merits of Amida—"the exertion of another"—should alone remain. Some of the conceptions of Western teaching thus present themselves in Japan in the midst of modes of life and thought of purely Indian origin. Christian theologians had debated whether faith was to be regarded as an opus or a donum, a "work" or a "gift," was it something to be attained by man or was it bestowed by God? The Japanese answer was unhesitating. Faith was not earned by effort, or achieved by merit, it was granted out of immeasurable love. "The Buddha," we read, "confers this heart. The heart which takes refuge in his heart is not produced by oneself. It is produced by the command of Buddha. Hence it is called the believing heart by the Power of Another." The natural corollary was that in due course this grace would be bestowed on all. The Buddha of Boundless Light and Life would overcome the darkness of ignorance and death; and this type of Buddhism, now the most active and influential in Japan, preaches the doctrine of universal salvation. The student finds here a whole series of parallels to the Evangelical interpretation of Christianity. Both schemes are founded on the same essential ideas, man's need of a deliverer, and the attainment of salvation by no human conduct but by faith in a divine person.

The foregoing sketches raise many problems. What are the actual features in different religions which are susceptible of comparison? How can we distinguish between resemblances which are deep-seated and spring from the fundamental principles of two given faiths, and those which are only on the surface, and probably accidental? How far can such parallels be ascribed to suggestion through historical contact, and, if they lie too far apart for possibilities of any form of mutual dependence, out of what common types of experience are they derived, what forces of thought have shaped them, what feelings do they express?

The student of Comparative Religion seeks answers to these and similar questions. A vast field of inquiry is at once opened before him. It embraces practically every continent, people, and tribe on the face of the globe. It begins in the last period of the great ice age, when men lived in this country in the company of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth, and hunted their game through Germany, Belgium, and France. In dim recesses of the caves they painted the deer, the bison, the antelope and the wild boar, under conditions which imply some kind of mysterious or holy place. They buried their dead with care, and though we can ask them no questions we may infer with much probability that they celebrated some kind of funeral meal, and deposited implements and ornaments in the grave for the use of the departed in the world beyond. In one case hundreds of shells were found buried with the skull of a little child. Similar usages may be traced through the slow advances of culture to the present day. Death is an element of universal experience; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that if the negroid peoples of Western Europe had worked out some view of its meaning and consequences, there were other things to be done or avoided out of fear or reverence for the Unseen.

The first objects of comparison are thus found in the outward acts which fall more or less clearly within the sphere of religion, the places where these are performed, the persons who do them, the means required for them, the occasions to which they are attached. These all belong to the external world; they can be observed and recorded, even though we may not be sure what they mean. When they are brought together, a series of gradations of complexity can be established, while a common purpose may be traced through all. From the negro who lays his offering of grain or fruit at the foot of a tree with the simple utterance, "Thank you, gods," to a great Eucharistic celebration at St. Peter's, a continuous line of ritual may be followed, in which the action becomes more