say that the Greek mythology is fairly
outdone by the alleged and repeated escapades of the chief Hindu
deities.

The traditions of all ancient religions found on either hemisphere, and
the usages observed among savage tribes of to-day all conform to the
same low moral gauge. All are as deplorably human as the degraded
peoples who devised them. In Mexico and Peru, as well as in Egypt and in
Babylonia, base human passion was mingled with the highest teachings of
religion.[227] Buddhism has generally been considered an exception to
this general rule, and it will be confessed that its influence has been
vastly higher than that of the old Hinduism, or the religions of Canaan,
or Greece, or Rome, and immeasurably higher in morals than that of
Islam; yet even Buddhism has been colored by its European advocates with
far too roseate a hue. Sir Edwin Arnold was not the first biographer of
Gautama to glorify incidentally the seductive influences of his Indian
harem, and to leave on too many minds the impression that, after all,
the luxurious palace of Sidartha was more attractive than the beggars'
bowl of the enlightened "Tathagata." The Bishop of Colombo, in an able
article on Buddhism, arraigns the apologetic translators of Buddhistic
literature for having given to the world an altogether erroneous
impression of the moral purity of the Sacred Books of Ceylon.[228]

The vaunted claim that the early Buddhist records, and especially the
early rock inscriptions found in caves, are pure, whatever corruptions
may have crept into more modern manuscripts, is well met by letters from
a recent traveller, which speak of certain Buddhist inscriptions so
questionable in character that they cannot be translated or
described.[229]

It is scarcely necessary for me to speak of the base appeal to man's low
passions found in the Koran. It is only necessary to trace its
unmistakable influence in the moral degeneracy of Mohammedan populations
in all lands and all ages--destroying the sacredness of the home,
degrading woman, engendering unnatural vices, and poisoning all society
from generation to generation. It is indeed a hard task for its
apologists, by any kind of literary veneering to cover the moral
deformity and the blasphemous wickedness which, side by side with
acknowledged excellences, mar the pages of the Koran. The soiled
finger-marks of the sensual Arab everywhere defile them. Like the blood
of Banquo, they defy all ocean's waters to