The author says that all this is pure nihilism, and Essene communism. "The most sacred family ties are to be renounced, and man to lose his individuality and become a unit in a vast scheme to overturn the institutions of his country." "Qu' importe au fanatisme la ruine de la societé humaine." "The anticosmic tendency of the Christian doctrine," says Mr. Felix Oswald ("Secret of the East," p. 27), "distinguishes it from all religions except Buddhism. In the language of the New Testament the 'world' is everywhere a synonym of evil and sin, the flesh everywhere the enemy of the spirit.... The Gospel of Buddha, though a pernicious, is, however, a perfectly consistent doctrine. Birth, life, and re-birth is an eternal round of sorrow and disappointment. The present and the future are but the upper and lower tire of an ever-rolling wheel of woe. The only salvation from the wheel of life is an escape to the peace of Nirvâna. The attempt to graft this doctrine upon the optimistic theism of Palestine has made the Christian ethics inconsistent and contradictory. A paternal Jehovah who yet eternally and horribly tortures a vast plurality of his children. An earth the perfect work of a benevolent God, yet a vale of tears not made to be enjoyed, but only to be despised and renounced. An omnipotent heaven, and yet unable to prevent the intrigues and constant victories of hell. Christianity is evidently not a homogeneous but a composite, a hybrid religion; and considered in connection with the indications of history, and the evidence of the above-named ethical and traditional analogies, these facts leave no reasonable doubt that the founder of the Galilean Church was a disciple of Buddha Sakyamuni." (p. 139.) All this is very well if the Buddhists by "salvation" meant escape from life, and not from sin. A "pessimist" Buddhist kingdom, according to this, ought to present the universal sad faces of the "Camelot" of a modern school of artists, and yet the Burmese are pronounced by all to be the merriest and happiest of God's creatures. We know, too, that India never was so prosperous as in the days of Buddhist rule. The monks carried agriculture to high perfection; and Indian fabrics were famous everywhere. A convent meant less a career than an education in spiritual knowledge. Like the Essene, the Buddhist monk was not forced to remain for life. Catholicism introduced that change. "THEN ALL HIS DISCIPLES FORSOOK HIM AND FLED." It is recorded that on one occasion when a "must" elephant charged furiously, "all the disciples deserted Buddha. Ananda alone remained." ("Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king," iv. 21.) "IF THY RIGHT EYE OFFEND THEE." Mr. Felix Oswald ("The Secret of the East," p. 134) announces, without however giving a more detailed reference, that according to Max Muller's translation of the "Ocean of Worlds," a young monk meets a rich woman who pities his hard lot. "Blessed is the woman who looks into thy lovely eyes!"