the spirit, and to look upon love and loyalty to God
as superstition. Is it any wonder that such persons have a warm side
toward Buddhism? Again, this system has certain points in common with
our modern evolution theories. It is unscientific enough certainly in
its speculations, but it gets on without creatorship or divine
superintendence, and believes in the inflexible reign of law, though
without a law-giver. It assigns long ages to the process of creation, if
we may call it creation, and in development through cycles it sees
little necessity for the work of God.

It can also join hands cordially with many social theories of the day.
The pessimism of Buddhists, ancient or modern, finds great sympathy in
the crowded populations of the Western as well as the Eastern world.
And, almost as a rule, Esoteric Buddhism, American Buddhism,
Neo-Buddhism, or whatever we may call it, is a cave of Adullam to which
all types of religious apostates and social malcontents resort. The
thousands who have made shipwreck of faith, who have become soured at
the unequal allotments of Providence, who have learned to hate all who
are above them and more prosperous than they, are just in the state of
mind to take delight in Buddha's sermon at Kapilavastu, as rehearsed by
Sir Edwin Arnold. There all beings met--gods, devas, men, beasts of the
field, and fowls of the air--to make common cause against the
relentless fate that rules the world, and to bewail the sufferings and
death which fill the great charnel-house of existence, while Buddha
voiced their common complaint and stood before them as the only pitying
friend that the universe had found. It was the first great Communist
meeting of which we have any record.[88] The wronged and suffering
universe was there, and all

"took the promise of his piteous speech,
So that their lives, prisoned in the shape of ape,
Tiger or deer, shagged bear, jackal or wolf,
Foul-feeding kite, pearled dove or peacock gemmed,
Squat toad or speckled serpent, lizard, bat,
Yea, or fish fanning the river waves,
Touched meekly at the skirts of brotherhood
With man, who hath less innocence than these:
And in mute gladness knew their bondage broke
Whilst Buddha spoke these things before the king."

There was no mention of sin, but only of universal misfortune!

In contrast with the deep shadows of a brooding and all-embracing
pessimism like this, we need only to hint at that