either in the old views nor in the new is
there anything which a Hindu or a Buddhist will accept, while he remains
a Hindu or Buddhist. So far as I am aware, all students of Hinduism and
Buddhism are agreed that eternal conscious existence, with identity of
being firmly maintained, is alien from both systems. They do not hold
the doctrine of either eternal happiness or eternal misery. To be
extinguished, in the sense of being absorbed into Brahm and losing all
conscious personality, is the reward of high virtue, while the wicked
have to pass many miserable births before they reach this longed-for
goal. With them salvation, liberation, is not deliverance from sin, but
from conscious existence. They have both heavens and hells--heavens
supernatural in their surroundings but intensely earthly in their
character, doings, and strifes, and hells full of everything which is
repulsive and painful; but both, after vast lapses of time, will be
emptied into the great ocean of being, into the One without a Second.
Cessation of conscious existence is not with them the punishment of
wickedness, but the eagerly desired consummation of their being, the
goal which is quickly reached by the eminently good.

Let missionaries by all means listen to what is said in favour of new
views, let them modify or change their views if they think they see
scriptural authority for the change, but I am profoundly convinced no
shifting of our doctrinal position will secure success. Looking over the
whole field of foreign missions since the end of last century, it is
undeniable that God has done great things by them, for which we have
abundant reason to be glad; and we know the teaching by which the desert
has in many places blossomed as the rose. New phases of doctrine have
yet to win their triumph. We must look in another direction for a
greater degree of success--to more unreserved devotedness to Christ on
the part of both missionaries and those who send them out; closer
communion with Him; a higher degree of attainment in the mind which is
in Him; a more persuasive deliverance of our message, and a larger
effusion of God's Spirit.

[Sidenote: THE HEART'S OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.]

The great obstruction at home and abroad to the acceptance of Christ as
the Saviour is moral obtuseness, a dormant conscience. Our Lord's words
throw a steady light on man's neglect of the great salvation, "_They
that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sic