"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it; for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt, xvi. 24). See also Mark viii. 34, x. 21, and Luke ix. 23-25, in the last verse of which the saying is varied by the words being used "what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself, or be cast away?" We are by habit more familiar with the style in which the Grecians wrote, than with that adopted by Sanscrit authors. But in both sets of writers the main idea is made strikingly apparent--viz., that to love anybody or anything on earth is prejudicial to our spiritual welfare, and that to act piously, it is necessary for the saint to free himself wholly from those instinctive affections which God has implanted in almost every one of his creatures. It is strange that any two ministers could have excogitated so monstrous a proposition, and that both should be called "Divine." The effect of the teaching of Buddha and of Jesus was to draw many from their hearth whose duty, in our estimation, was clearly to remain at home, and endeavour to cherish and support their family. I enter my strong protest as an Englishman, as well as individual Christian, against the idea that a man who believes himself a disciple of the son of Mary must go abroad to teach and preach, or become an ascetic, a hermit, or a monk, and leave his wife and children to be cared for by his friends or the parish. I believe most strongly that our affections are implanted in us by our Maker, just as a mother's love exists alike in the tigress and the eagle, and that any religion which teaches us that we must overcome these propensities, is a false one. It is strange, to say the least of it, that both the son of Maya and of Mary should have promulgated such a doctrine--i.e., that religion is designed to make our pleasures less, and our miseries greater. It is perhaps too much to assert that no other form of faith, besides those which have sprung from Buddha and from Jesus, possesses such a tenet as that to which we refer; but we can safely affirm that we do not know of any in which the natural affections existing between parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, have not been cultivated as a portion of the duties to be fulfilled by the faithful. It is scarcely necessary to call attention to the resemblance which the doctrine in question bears to that which was promulgated by the Grecian "Stoics"; and the similitude is still farther increased by such a sentence as the following in the Dhammapada:--