and marvellous legend, and he says that many religious men resemble readers of romances or smokers of opium; the reality becomes insipid to them, although it is really more grand than the fantastic world of opium and romance. Mr. Arnold does not perceive that, if the reality is, as he says, the greatest and most beautiful of things, we have no further need of the legend of Christianity, not even interpreted as he interprets it: the real world, and by the real world I understand the moral not less than the physical universe, should prove abundantly sufficient for us. Ithuriel, Mr. Arnold says, has punctured miracles with his spear; and did he not at the same stroke puncture symbolism? We prefer to see truth naked rather than tricked out in parti-coloured vestments; to clothe truth is to degrade it. Mr. Arnold compares a too absolute faith to intoxication; one might willingly compare Mr. Arnold to Socrates, who could drain off more than any other guest at the table without becoming intoxicated. Not to become intoxicated was, for the Greeks, one of the prerogatives of the sage. With this reservation they permitted him to drink, but in our days the sages make small use of the permission; they admire Socrates without imitating him, and find that sobriety is still the best means of keeping one’s head. One might say as much to Matthew Arnold. The Bible with its scenes of massacre, of rape, and of divine vengeance is in his judgment bread for the soul; the soul can no more do without it than we can ourselves do without eating. The reply is that he has himself proved it to be a dangerous form of nourishment, and that it is sometimes better to fast than to eat poison. [Sidenote: Buddhism more deeply symbolic than Christianity.] For the rest, if one persists in seeking in the sacred books of by-gone ages for the expression of primitive morality, it is not in the Bible, but rather in the Hindu books that a literary or philosophical interpretation will find the most extraordinary example of moral symbolism. The entire world appears to the Buddhist as the realization of the moral law, since in his opinion beings take rank in the universe according to their virtues or vices, mount or descend on the ladder of life according to their moral elevation or abasement. Buddhism is in certain respects an effort to find in morals a theory of the universe. * * * * * [Sidenote: Dependence of religion upon morality.]