Mr. Lillie, in referring to the doctrine of re-incarnation, quotes from an article in the _Church Quarterly Review_,[AE] in which, he says, "the author of the article, in proof of the existence of this doctrine, adduces the question put by the disciples of Christ in reference to the man born blind. And if it was considered that a man could be born blind as a punishment for sin, then it must have been plainly committed before his birth." In the _White Lotus of Dharma_ there is an account of the healing of a blind man: "Because of the sinful conduct of the man (in a former birth) this malady has arisen." He also remarks that, in the case of the paralytic (Luke v. 18), the cure was effected, not by any physical processes, but by annulling the _sins_ which were the cause of the malady. [AE] October, 1885. The Rev. Mr. Spence Hardy, in his _Manual of Buddhism_, observes that "no one can tell but a Buddha how Karma operates or how the chain of existence commenced. It is as vain to ask in what part of the tree the fruit exists before the blossom is put forth as to ask for the locality of Karma." When the King of Ságal inquired where Karma resides, its locality, Nagasena replied: "Karma is like a shadow that always accompanies the body. But it cannot be said that it is here, or that it is there; in this place, or in that place." It has, I believe, been stated by some writers that it would have been as well if Gotama had not encumbered his teaching with such a complex and metaphysical theory as Karma, and had confined himself to the admirable moral precepts which form the real backbone of his system. It has been thought, too, that in introducing Karma into his scheme of things he was playing the _rôle_ of an opportunist, because he felt it to be necessary for the success of his mission that it should not be altogether severed in outline from such a conception as that of metempsychosis, which was deeply implanted in the minds of the Brahmanic philosophers of those times. Buddhism would certainly have been incomplete if it had not included mysteries, as Christianity would not be Christianity without an admixture of the indefinable. "Karma," as "working," may, I think, be regarded as one of the essential components of Christian thought with regard to the soul. It is the working of the soul at the same time, the being-made-soul or disposition. As the latter it is heritable and appropriable; its effects are endless, and this "working" is carried on, so to speak, from generation to generation, organically and inorganically--in the rock, in the flower, and in all animal life--the same producing the same, and yet not the same.