confines of the world, the pious Buddhist at last hopes to join the one Supreme Amitâbha, and millions of blessed Buddhas discoursing upon all things good, in a state in which there is no sorrow, and, “strangest to say, no Nirvana.”[363] The more these imaginary deities increased, the more must the earnest moral teachings of Buddha have been obscured. The discovery of the Bôdhisatvas opened the way to a rapid declension from primitive self-culture to a system of “voluntary humility.” Discipleship became easier in proportion as the worship of these shadowy creations extended. It is much easier to idolise than obey, to say, “Lord, Lord,” than to do the thing which he commands. This falling away from the high Buddhist rule of self-control, proceeding step by step with the growth of the legends, is just an illustration of the tendency in every religion to allow the ethical and metaphysical elements so to drift asunder, that instead of being one in holy wedlock they become thoroughly and irreconcilably opposed. It was inevitable in Buddhism that morality, considered essential to self-rescue, should be supplanted by that debasing belief in the efficacy of rites which the system was launched to destroy. Its founder went to the unnatural extreme of ignoring man’s craving for reconciliation. He had no faith in Divine forgiveness, or in the grace of repentance, and he never wearied of pouring contempt upon sacrifice and prayer. No Hebrew prophet could be more severe in his scorn of useless rites; but then the Hebrew believed in the efficacy of one sacrifice, a “heart broken by sorrow,” for sin not as a misfortune or a folly, but as an offence to a Holy Being who was ready to forgive, and to be pleased with the worship of a will surrendered in gratitude and in love. Very early in his history man has indicated his sense of alienation from God in his endeavours to discover an atonement. The instinctive sense of wrong relations to the powers that govern life has been liable to fearful perversion, but Buddha, with all his denunciation, could not destroy it, nor reason men out of it. He could induce some to withdraw their imploring cries and glances from the gods, but he could not sweep the heavens clean of them. Belief in the existence[364] of gods, and demons, and fairies, and charms against ill-luck, was strong in his disciples from the first; and when an object of worship was recognised and allowed, an elaborate ritual of worship, and latterly of propitiation, was rapidly developed. In Northern Buddhism this recoil was most extreme, for there, especially in Nepāl and Tibet, belief in the efficacy of rites deteriorated into belief in spells and incantations, till it issued in the Tantra system—a mixture of magic and sorcery whose abominable doctrines, Burnouf, out of very loathing, refused to translate to us.[365] Christianity has had many corrupters, who have never scrupled to propose or to accept any