"In His hand is a cup, and the wine is red." [C] Author's translation of _Bostān of Sâdi_. Another picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate Saviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure from the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of serpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father. Dr. Paul Carus, in his preface to _The Gospel of Buddha_, says: "A comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and Buddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity, but will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential nature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions. It will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the cosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians and Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their faith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth." The theological formation which has gradually developed into what may be called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached its limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying influences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious inquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface and observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages, given rise to the accretions. The deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater perhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander is, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear that ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer be bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last disappear. As it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry, "that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best consists with fertility." Christianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features--"the metaphysical," "the ethical," and "the biographical." As the two latter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these systems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a consideration of their mystical relationship. D. M. S. _Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh. February, 1899._ SANSCRIT AND PALI TERMS USED. {Includes everything of which impermanence may be {predicated, or, which is the same thing, everything SAMSKĀRA {which springs from a cause. (Childers.) SANKHĀRA {Gestaltungen--Oldenberg's _Buddha_, German edition. {Conformations--English translation of Oldenberg's {_Buddha_. SKANDHAS The five attributes or elements of being--form, sensation, perception, discrimination, and consciousness. BHIKKHU {Mendicant, monk, friar. BHIKSHU { AKĀSA Space.