Lest it should appear to any of my readers that I have laid undue stress upon the value and beauty of Buddhism in the foregoing pages, I would take this opportunity of disclaiming any intention on my part to draw invidious distinctions between the manifestations of the two faiths of which I have treated, and which, in my opinion, are _fundamentally_ one and the same. In this connection my sole aim has been to give prominence to the many excellent properties possessed by Buddhism, with a view to clearing the way for an impartial appreciation of this religion by those who have never yet bestowed their attention or extended their sympathies to the subject with unbiased minds. The dissolution, not the destruction, of symbolism which I have endeavoured to accomplish in dealing with the metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism--of that symbolism which is so apt, when taken as a thing in itself, to contract our sympathies and darken our vision in respect of religions--will have achieved an object if it succeeds in carrying with it the conviction, at present[AU] so indisturbably possessed by the writer, that _essential_ Christianity and _true_ Buddhism cannot be differentiated; that the ultimate source of their power and loveliness is one; that they rest upon the same imperishable foundations, which are lost to sight in billowy clouds of mystery, in a splendour beyond imagining. [AU] "In knowledge that man only is to be condemned who is not in a state of transition ... nor is there anything more adverse to accuracy than fixity of opinion" (_Faraday_). The priest in Zola's _Rome_ looked forward to the day when symbols and rites, so necessary in the infancy of the world, would disappear altogether--"to the time when enlarged, purified, and instructed humanity would be able to support the brightness of naked truth" without their assistance. It may be, however, that any premature abandonment of symbols, rites, and ceremonies might, under present conditions, prove disastrous, as such a course would go far to arrest artistic tendencies and stifle within us those cravings for the beautiful which are such undeniably potent and useful factors in conducting us onward to a realization of the invisible. All that appears requisite in this direction at the present moment is that the symbolic element in symbolism should be clearly recognized, and symbolism appraised at its true value. Concurrently with the development of a deeper insight into the realities which subsist in symbols, there should arise in these Northern latitudes a class of people who would demonstrate by their character and actions that, under existing social conditions, and in all the turmoil of modern civilization, a nearer approach to the ideal life than has yet been made by a community is within the range of practicalities. This is the most clamant need of the day.