It is not compatible with our space to trace the parallels between Esoteric Buddhism and some nineteenth-century forms of speculation in which the finite is again seen to be going back to the absolute, and the reality of everything but the self is denied. On the religious side, however, it is interesting to notice a later stage of it in a system which, originating not long after Bôdiharma, took some four centuries to establish itself. The T’ien-t’ai or Chi-Che school differed from Bôiharma’s theory of pure mental abstraction to be gained through complete withdrawal from all sensible surroundings, in that it sought to aid contemplation by sensuous exercises. Worship of gay idols, music of many persons chanting in unison, postures of kneeling and standing, exercises of continued and loud recitation, with intervals of profound silence and intense meditation, were supposed to produce the desired illumination. It seemed to be the first recognition of feeling in the Buddhist religion, and the first attempt to employ it to produce ecstasy. The same attempt has often been repeated in the history of Christianity, sometimes in very grotesque and extravagant forms. In every outburst of religious enthusiasm we may see rude examples of it, but it is also the principle on which æsthetic worship is generally defended. It is a reminder, therefore, to some very superior people, of our common human nature, and a warning that when left to itself, or indulged, even the æsthetic, like all other instincts, will just run the same round of extravagance in manifold and ever-recurring variety. The tendency in human nature to pervert a religion is as strongly manifested in Christianity as in Buddhism; but there is this outstanding distinction between them, that while a survey of Buddhism shows that everywhere it has run its course, and has exhausted its intellectual and moral and spiritual resources, Christianity upon examination appears to be only in an early stage of development. In spite of the perversions of the Church, and its repeated resistance to Christian movements, Christianity has always produced what has condemned and corrected and vanquished them. It is the recuperative power of Christianity which most distinguishes it. There is nothing in the history of Buddhism which at all corresponds with the Reformation. To-day all over the world it is stereotyped and unprogressive, whereas everywhere in Christendom there is ferment of thought and stirring of life, plainly indicating that whatever power may claim the past, Christianity has the sure promise of the future.