The believers in transmigration or reincarnation forget that the scientific view of man leaves no room for anything to migrate. What science understands by soul is the word which expresses the functions, including brain activity and the circulation of the blood. When these cease there is no soul to go anywhere. Neither could reincarnation produce the moral discipline claimed by its advocates. It is no punishment to return to the world in a lower form of life, since there is no memory, clear and ringing, of a former and higher existence. Moreover, the lower forms of life are more callous and not at all conscious of deflection from a better standard. If a cruel man becomes a tiger, it would be giving him a better chance to be more cruel. Unless the animal can remember his humanity, he can not be disciplined by a descent into a lower stage of being.. But the Buddhist hell, fearful though it is, is, fortunately, not everlasting. Over its gaping mouth is spread the rainbow arch of Nirvana, that is to say, deliverance for all from every form of suffering, in sleep--_eternal sleep_, which will, some day, according to this religion, fold an aching world on its cool and calm bosom. The vice of Buddhism then is its exaggeration of the troubles of life--its deprecation of the opportunities for the pursuit of truth and goodness which life offers. By dwelling too long and too often upon the thorns, Buddhism becomes blind to the rose which is as real as the thorns. And again this Oriental teacher set up an unattainable ideal when he demanded the eradication of all desire from the human soul. Man can only change his desires; he cannot cease to desire. Not to desire is also a desire--a desire to be free from desire. The virtue which we admire most in Buddha's doctrine is gentleness. Buddha is said to have been of all great leaders the most compassionate. He trembled to cause pain to the least of sentient things. The birds, the fishes, the crawling worms, as well as man, he looked upon as his brothers. Buddhism might be called the Religion of Pity. There is little doubt but that wherever Buddhism triumphed there war and persecution, two of the most abominable institutions of all time, practically disappeared. It is with feelings of undivided admiration that I now come to speak of Confucius--the only Rationalist among the immortals of ancient times. If the other founders of Faiths owe their reign over the minds of men, in part at least, to the wonderful miracles attributed to them, Confucius, on the contrary, owes his increasing reputation to the complete absence of the supernatural from his life and doctrines. He has conquered the ages by his common sense. And his sanity assures for him a future which we can not safely predict for the others.