Forlong - Rivers of Life

18
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
had no heaven or hell such as later ages describe, and but such faint glimmering of
a future life as their Eastern neighbours seem to have given them.
I must enlarge here a little on Boodhism. In a book lately published by Mr. H.
Alabaster, Interpreter to Her Majesty’s Consulate General in Siam, Boodhism illustrated
by a Modern Boodhist, he says, “It is a moot point whether the religion does
teach Atheism and Annihilation, for it is doubtful what these words mean.” He would
not venture to apply such terms to Boodhists, as Atheists, &c., for they are terms of
reproach, and involve infinite considerations which we are little able to comprehend.
So far as his experience goes, he says, “Boodhists do not deny the existence of a God,”
but many reverently abstain from defining that which it is impossible to comprehend.
“Southern Siamese Boodhism,” he adds, “does not recognise any personal
eternal God, acting interestedly in the world, and it regards as the highest aim of
man, a peace resulting from the utter absence of all that we understand to be connected
with existence.” “Judged, however,” says a Westminster Reviewer, “by
the maxim, ‘by their fruits shall ye know them,’ Boodhist has a good standpoint.
Boodhism and Christianity have many similarities and contrasts, as miraculous gestation
and birth, temptation of the destined Deliverer by the fiend, ascension into heaven,
and generally speaking, self-devotion for the sake of the redemption of the human
race, are features of resemblance in the portraiture of the two Saviours. Above all,
the purport of the precepts of the two religions appear to be essentially the same.
Bible religions, as expounded even by their intelligent disciples, fail to grasp the principle
that virtue is its own reward. Boodha is not the ‘Saviour’ or Deliverer which
Christians hold Christ to be; his saving or delivering consists in his showing mankind
the path they are to follow, each one for his own deliverance. . . . but by now means
in his (Boodha) becoming a substitute or sacrificial propitiation on behalf of others.
The whole sacrificial theory of the reconciliation of the Divine Being to sinful man by
means of a bloody offering on his behalf, is utterly and thoroughly repugnant to the
Boodhist. There is no common ground of reason whereby such a doctrine could be
made acceptable to him; and,” concludes the reviewer, “it is an inevitable fact, from
Mr. Alabaster’s work, that it is perfectly futile ever to expect conversions from Boodhism
to Christianity by means of reason and conviction.” I can go farther, and add as
my experience all over Barma, that the result in regard to Boodhism is precisely the
same as I have stated in the case of Hindooism. I have closely watched the working
of all missions to Boodhists, and have never seen a single lasting conversion to Christianity
as the result of reason and conviction, but a good number by what the Westminster
seems here to term “the artificial and social methods.” Old men or women,
and boys and girls are persuaded to join the Christian missions, when knowing
nothing of their own faiths and incapable of reasoning; and middle-aged persons I have
occasionally seen join from interested motives, and remain so long as these lasted, often
for life, because their relatives cannot take them back into religious or social fellow-