How different the words and experiences of Gautama Rishi! Many have spoken of him as an atheist. I do not believe that he denied the existence of God. Yet it is evidently true that he has no use in his philosophy, any more than in his religion, for a Divine Being. There was doubtless reason for this in the conditions of his time; for it may be regarded as the reaction of a strong mind against the extreme spiritualism and polytheism of the day. For, in those days, the deep spirituality of the Brahman had overflowed its banks and had created a multitudinous pantheon which repelled this man of stern mind. It was to him only a short step from a disbelief in the _many_ gods to a doubt as to the existence of _any_ god. And in this agnosticism he was doubtless aided by his fondness for the _Sankya_ school of thought, which is Indian Agnosticism. In any case, his deliverances and his established religion, if such it really can be called, are such a reaction from the Theosophy of India as to lead one to wonder how, even with all its other excellences, it could have become in India a State Religion for any length of time. A religion without a God, a sacrifice, a priest, or a prayer, is certainly a dreary wilderness to a God-seeking soul. And yet, this is what the Buddha conceived and promulgated among his disciples. Under the stress of a growing consciousness of the ills of this life his mind did not, like that of others, rise to heaven for relief; but his salvation was to be a self-wrought one. With his own right arm of virtue he wished to carve his way into eternal life--or, shall I say, eternal death? Is it strange that under such a godless religious system its votaries should react from this fundamental error and deify and worship that very Buddha who had not a place for God in his whole scheme of life? At any rate, Christ and Buddha stand before us in striking contrast in this matter; the glory of the teaching of the one was that He caused His adoring disciple to fall upon his knees with uplifted eye and to say in filial reverence and trust, "Our Father who art in heaven." While the other taught his followers to lean only upon self, and to seek speedy relief from life itself, declaring that heaven returned only an empty, mocking echo to the helpless wail of the human soul.