"A fine old man that," he continued. "It is a pity he should be a priest of so absurd a faith. Do you know anything about Buddhism? The Buddhists believe in the transmigration of souls (the doctrine of the _metempsychosis_, as it is called). In that respect they are like the followers of Brahma. It is doubtful, indeed, which is the older faith of the two--whether Brahminism is a corruption of Buddhism, or whether Buddhism is an attempt to restore Brahminism to its original purity. Buddhism has existed for upwards of two thousand years; it is the chief religion of the Chinese, and that indeed of upwards of one-third of the human race at the present day. Buddhists are practically atheists. Buddha Gotama, to whom all Buddhists look up, was, they believe, the incarnation of excellence. They fancy that everything was made by chance, and that Buddha was only infinitely superior to all other beings, and therefore that he is a fit object of admiration and contemplation, and that the height of happiness is to be absorbed in some way, after having been purified by many changes, into his being. They believe in the perfectibility of man, and therefore their great aim is to become moral and virtuous, while the employment of their priests is chiefly to contemplate virtue, and to inculcate its precepts and practice. Indeed, it may be said to be less a form of religion than a school of philosophy. Its worship appeals father to the reason than to the imagination, through the instrumentality of rites and parades; and, though ceremonies and festivals are introduced, the more enlightened are anxious to explain that these are either innovations of the priesthood, or in honour of some of the monarchs who have proved patrons and defenders of the faith. No people, perhaps, are so destitute of all _warmth_ and fervour in their religion as the followers of Buddha. They believe because their ancestors believed, and they look with the most perfect complacency on the doctrines of the various sects who surround them. As Sir Emmerson Tennent says--`The fervid earnestness of Christianity, even in its most degenerate form, the fanatical enthusiasm of Islam, the proud exclusiveness of Brahma, and even the zealous warmth of other northern faiths, are all emotions utterly unknown and foreign to the followers of Buddhism in Ceylon. Yet, strange to tell, under all the icy coldness of this barren system there burns below the unextinguished fires of another and a darker superstition, whose flames overtop the icy summits of the Buddhist philosophy, and excite a deeper and more reverential awe in the imagination of the Singhalese. As the Hindus in process of time superadded to their exalted conceptions of Brahma, and the benevolent attributes of Vishnu, their dismal dreams and apprehensions, which embody themselves in the horrid worship of Siva, and in invocations to propitiate the destroyer; so the followers of