insure this aid. Repetition,
dinning the divinities and wearying them into answering, is their
theory. Therefore they will repeat a short formula of four words (_om
mani padme hum_--Om! the jewel in the lotus, amen) thousands of times a
day; or, as they correctly think it not a whit more mechanical, they
write it a million times on strips of paper, fasten it around a
cylinder, attach this to a water or a wind-wheel, and thus sleeping or
waking, at home or abroad, keep up a steady fire of prayer at the gods,
which finally, they sanguinely hope, will bring them to submission.

No sect has such entire confidence in the power of prayer as the
Buddhists. The most pious Mahometan or Christian does not approach their
faith. After all is said and done, the latter has room to doubt the
efficacy of his prayer. It may be refused. Not so the Buddhists. They
have a syllogism which covers the case completely, as follows:--

All things are in the power of the gods.
The gods are in the power of prayer.
Prayer is at the will of the saint.
Therefore all things are in the power of the saint.

The only reason that any prayer fails is that it is not repeated often
enough--a statement difficult to refute.

The case with Confucius was different.[122-1] No speculative dreamer,
but a practical man, bent on improving his fellows by teaching them
self-reliance, industry, honesty, good feeling and the attainment of
material comfort, he did not see in the religious systems and doctrines
of his time any assistance to these ends. Therefore, like Socrates and
many other men of ancient and modern times, without actually condemning
the faiths around him, or absolutely neglecting some external respect to
their usages, he taught his followers to turn away from religious topics
and occupy themselves with subjects of immediate utility. For questions
of duty, man, he taught, has a sufficient guide within himself. "What
you do not like," he said, "when done to yourself, do not to others."
The wishes, he adds, should be limited to the attainable; thus their
disappointment can be avoided by a just estimate of one's own powers. He
used to compare a wise man to an archer: "When the archer misses the
target, he seeks for the cause of his failure within himself." He did
not like to talk about spiritual beings. When asked whether the dead had
knowledge, he replied: "There is no present urgency about the matter. If
they have, you will know it for