In spite of the protests of Gotama against attempts to persuade the gods, this is what most Buddhists in Southern Asia have come to do: and in Tibet, China, and Japan prayer is multiplied by mechanical devices, such as prayer-wheels, prayer-cylinders, and prayer-flags--a degeneration of mysticism into magic, not unknown in some Christian lands. The human heart is hungry and wants to pray! And even this religion of enlightenment and of the fixed causality of the universe has had to find a place for prayer. And Divine Beings have been called in to answer the aspiration of the heart. Gotama himself is deified: and folk pray to him in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon: whilst in the other Buddhist lands they have learnt to love such compassionate beings as Kwanyin, and Amitābha, Buddha of eternal Light who saves men by his grace. That there is mercy in heaven is the hope of every man. It is but a pathetic dream, until we know that the heavens have spoken and declared that mercy in the Word made Flesh. "So through the thunder comes a human voice." 10. Yet it emphasises Stoical Self-mastery. On the other hand, the whole trend of early Buddhism is stoical. It sets up a lofty moral ideal, yet offers relatively little assistance in attaining it. Admiration for the Buddha, faith in the system he preached, common-sense or enlightened self-interest in accepting the great truth that happiness follows upon goodness--these furnish the motive power of a Buddhist religious life. In theory, at least, there is no god higher than the little local deities who are said to have bowed down before the Buddha. Inasmuch, moreover, as they are also subject to _kamma_, the gods are less admirable and less helpful than he. To some thinkers this stoical self-mastery is the strongest element of Buddhism. "I am the captain of my soul," a good Buddhist would say: "I am the master of my fate." But to those who think more deeply, this will appear an element of weakness, for everywhere and in all ages the human heart finds no ultimate satisfaction without a belief in some loftier, purer, and stronger Being, who is ready to hear and to help. And in the more developed Buddhism of the North such theology plays a very great part. The history of Buddhism is one of the best chapters in Christian apologetics and deserves close study. As we shall see, the Japanese Buddhist believes in a Trinitarian theology, and in an evangelical doctrine of salvation: and, in one great sect, has urged its priests to marry. 11. It has Two Standards of Morality.