with the rise in power of the sacerdotal class, the Brahmans. While the Vedic religion is imbued with a spirit of strong belief in the efficacy of sacrifice and prayer, we find that this steadily increases in domination as we approach modern times. To all, except the Sudras or Serfs, a course of life conduct is prescribed consisting of four stages, _viz._: as a religious student, as a householder, as an anchorite, and last, as a religious mendicant. Corresponding to these, there were four sacred debts, _viz._: that due to the gods and paid by worship; that due to the ancient sages and discharged by Vedic study; that which he owes to his manes, and which he relieves himself of by the perpetuation of his name in a son; and last, that which he owes to mankind, and which demands his incessantly practicing kindness and hospitality. They believed in the immortality of the soul and through metempsychosis, in its reward or punishment, according to its existence here. In the sixth century before Christ, there lived in India a member of the Brahman class who was destined to more than restore Brahmanism to its pristine purity. Gautama Buddha was born as the son of a local ruler and his wife, whose conception was accomplished by her falling into a trance and dreaming that the future Buddha had become a superb white elephant, who, walking around her and striking her upon the right side with a lotus flower, entered her womb. Such is the Hindoo myth. This reformer altogether denied the existence of the soul, as an entity or substance possessing immortality in the individual sense, and he taught that the soul's future happiness in the abstract was entirely dependent upon its performance while here, as distinguished from any recollection or effect of its previous existences. He denied the authority of the Veda and the efficacy of prayer--in fact, his creed is best shown by a quotation from his gospel: "Rituals have no efficacy, prayers are but vain repetitions, and incantations have no saving power. But to abandon covetousness and lust, to become free from all evil passions, and to give up all hatred and ill-will; that is the right sacrifice and the true worship." This is the kernel of the pure Buddhistic belief, and this declaration at once reduces his system from a religious to a purely ethical one. Excepting the myth of his conception, his life was a perfectly natural one. Nothing could be more real than his discovery of sorrow and misery, and his inquiry after its cause; nothing can be more touching than his parting from his wife and son, whom he loved so much that he could not hazard the pleasure of a last farewell. And under the stress of this situation, we are particularly told that he was human enough to give way to tears. No ethics could be higher in the aggregate than his--not once, but time and again, does he speak thus: "Indulge in lust but little, and lust, like a child, will grow. Charity is rich in returns; charity is