File:Beacon lights of history. (The world's heroes and master minds) (1888) (14761041544).jpg

Identifier: beaconlightsofh01lord (find matches)
Title: Beacon lights of history. (The world's heroes and master minds)
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Lord, John, 1810-1894
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Publisher: New York, J. Clarke
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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. Buddhism is essentially rationalistic and ethical,while Brahmanism is a pantheistic tendency to poly-theism, and ritualistic even to the most offensive sacer-dotalism. The Brahman reminds me of a Dunstan, —the Buddhist of a Benedict; the former of the gloomy,spiritual despotism of the Middle Ages, — the latter ofself-denying monasticism in its best ages. The Brah-man is like Thomas Aquinas with his dogmas and met-aphysics ; the Buddhist is more like a medi;^val free-thinker, stigmatized as an atheist. The Brahman wasso absorbed with his theological speculation that hetook no account of the sufferings of humanity; theBuddhist was so absorbed with the miseries of manthat the greatest blessing seemed to be entire andendless rest, the cessation of existence itself,—sinceexistence brought desire, desire sin, and sin misery.As a religion Buddhism is an absurdity; in fact, it isno religion at aU, only a system of moral philosophy.Its weak points, practically, are the abuse of philan-
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BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. lUl thropy, its system of organized idleness and mendi-cancy, the indifference to thrift and industry, themultiplication of lazy fraternities and useless retreats,reminding us of monastic institutions in the days ofChaucer and Luther. The Buddhist priest is a mendi-cant and a pauper, clothed in rags, begging his livingfrom door to door, in which he sees no disgrace andno impropriety. Buddhism failed to ennoble the dailyoccupations of life, and produced drones and idlers andreligious vagabonds. In its corruption it lent itselfto idolatry, for the Buddhist temples are filled withhideous images of all sorts of repulsive deities, al-though Buddha himself did not hold to idol worshipany more than to the belief in a personal God. Buddhism, says the author of its accepted cate-chism, teaches goodness without a God, existencewithout a soul, immortality without life, happinesswithout a heaven, salvation without a saviour, redemp-tion without a redeemer, and worship wit

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