uth,
otherwise it could not have survived and thriven as it has. It bears
consistent testimony to the immortality of the soul. It also teaches the
important truth that the soul must receive the full reward of all its
deeds in a body. It is also, in a certain way, a response to that deep
instinct of justice which is a part of human nature. But these cannot
atone for its fundamental defects and errors. Some claim that its highest
merit is that it is a powerful deterrent from sin and incentive to virtue.
Beyond the remarks made above the all-sufficient refutation to such a
statement is the present condition of the Hindu race itself. If any people
on earth, more than others, sin with "fatal facility" and seem perfectly
oblivious to the character and consequences of their deeds they are the
descendants of the rishis of old and the heirs, in rich abundance, of this
and its cognate doctrines. To judge this doctrine by its results in India
is to pronounce it an error and a curse.

5. The Ideals of the Two Faiths.

No religion can regenerate or exalt men simply through a code of moral
laws, or even through impassioned appeals to a higher life and threats of
eternal punishment. There must be, above and beyond all this, a life which
stands boldly forth as an example and inspiration to good men. The noble
example of the royal Gautama did more perhaps than any other thing to
disseminate Buddhism throughout India. His supreme renunciation and his
loyalty to truth exalted him before his disciples and transformed him into
an ideal for Buddhists of future ages. This also is a preeminent
characteristic of Christianity. It is the religion of the Christ. _He_
stands supreme in it--not merely as its Founder, Expounder and Life. He is
also the embodiment of His own teaching, the ideal of life and conduct
which He has brought to men. His command to all is not--"Do this or that";
but "Follow Me"--not, "Believe in this truth or another," but "Believe in
Me," who am "the way, the truth and the life." For these twenty centuries
He has stood before the world as the incomparable, unapproachable, perfect
ideal which has wrought more for the regeneration of the world than all
other forces put together.

Do we find any counterpart to this in Hinduism? Do we find any life or
example which stands related to it as Buddha's to Buddhism or as
Mohammed's to Mohammedanism, or, even in a slight degree, as Christ's to
Christianity? None whatever. Sta