BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1841, 24 April 1884, Page 4

BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.

At, the ia«t largo meeting held in Febiunry, by the Victoria (Philosophical) Institute, 7, Adi'lulii Ten act 1 , London, a ,iapei was read by the Rev. li. C Collins, M.A , on Buddhism in icl.iiion to Clinstianity. Bofening to the p.nallels between the poisons and ehaiaoteis of Buddha and Jesus Christ, lie said :- Take, as a piomincnt instance, the birth stories. I need mtheie gi\e details, which aie to lie found in any modem w oik on Buddhism The supposed •Miraculous conception ; biingmg down of Buddha fioni the Ti.sita heaven ; the I)j\,is acknowledging his snpiemacy ; the pusontation in the Temple, when the images ot Indr.i and otlier gods threw thenisel\us at his feet ; the temptation by Miii.'i- which let-ends are embellished by the modern wiiter 1 have alieady quoted, miner such pluases as "Conceived by the Hoi} (ll)ost," " Bom of the Virgin M.ij.i," " Song of the heivenly host, ' " Fiesentation m the Temple andtemutation in the wilderness"— none of these is found in the eail Pah texts. Hie simple stoiy of ancient Buddhism is that an ascetic, " hose family namew as Gautama, pieached a new doctune of human sulleiing, and a new way of deliveianoe fiom it Theie is no thought in the eaily Buddhism, of which we read in IVili tevts, of dtlivetaiice at the liando of a god ; but the man Gautama Buddha -tuuU alone in bis stiivmg aftei the true emancipation fioin sotiow and ignoiance The accounts of his descending fiom heaven, and being conceived in the wolld of men, when a pretcmatual light shone over the woilds, the blind leceiwd «:L'ht, the dumb sang, the lame danced. lhafeioK were en ted, together with oil siuh embellishment", aie certainly added by latei hands ; and if hpie we ic«oc;ii>e .some lailur lemaikable likenesses in tl o igbt or expulsion to things familiar to us m out Bibles we mod not be astonished, when we it-fleet how guat must have been the influence, is I have bcfoie hinted, of the Chiistian stoiy in India in the early centimes of the Chiistian eia. and, peihaps, long subsequently Tins is a point which has been much mei looked ; but it is abundantly evident ,110111, among other pi oofs, the stoiy ot the cod Knslmn, which is a manifest paiodv of the hiatoiy of Christ The UhauMv.it (iit.i, a tlieojoyhie.il poem put into the mouth of Kushna, is some thing unique among the pi od notions of the Kast, containing many jjrais of what we should call ChiUtuin tiuth wiested fiom then pionei scttintr, to idoin the cieation of flu' Bi.iliman poet and mdi eating as iilunlv theii origin as do the stone-, ot his life in the Mali.i-Jsh.nata : so that it ha-> not mneasonablv been con eluded that the stoiv of Kiishna was inseited in the Afaln Uliaiala to tmnish a divine sanction to the Bhagavat-(4it,i. ]f then, as tlieic is the stiongist tea -.on to believe, the Clui-tian stoiy, some wlieic between the fiiot and tenth cen tunes of the Chmtian en, foiccul itself into tlic Hindu epic, and was at the foundation of the most lennikable poem that evei saw the light in India, can we be Miipnsed if we find simil.nly bo-iowid and imitated wondeis in the latci IJmldhiststoiiesalso ?Sevcial Home and Colonial applications to join the Institute as "iiim-a. Sub->ciil.>eis weie lecened, and its object being tn mvestmate all philosophical and scienti/i'' questions, especially any said to militate against tlio ti nth of the Bible,— a d^cu^ion ensued in which Mr. Honnuzd Ka«s,im, Piofcssoi Leitner, fiom L.ihoie, Mr Coles, an earnest student of the questions, dui ing 2,") years' lesidencc in Oylon, Professor Rhys IJ.wuis, and otheistook piit. All agn-ciug in and continuing the statements ot Mi. Collins pa pci. l)i Lcitnt-i bi ought a laige number ot photogi.ijihs ot eaily Indian and Taitai sculptures, showing the liistmtiodiu ti<>>\ of the Christian stoiy into those monuments between about the second and tenth centimes, and ho j pointed o'll the value of additional confnmation of Mi Collins statements.

Tin, main walls of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake wue lecently completed Thej <ue of solid gianite, 85 feet high and 10 feet thick, and wcie begun 2S ycais ago. The coat thus fai has been 4,.")00 OOOdollaio. Art OKi)is<' to the last census, the annual death-iatc per 1000 of the Austialasian colonist was not 14, whcicas the bnth-iate was ovei 'A7>. A new English magazine says that oysteis frequently live to be '20 yea is old. This may notbetme; butoysteis aie fie(|iiently sold heie which taste as if they nnirht be that old and weie somew hat tned. A m mi:i k of honest citi/ens in .Sydney contemplate the tonnation ot a league for the piotcction of then wives and danghteis fiom the beastly lainkin. Mr \V vltkr Jon \sto> will delay his dep.uluie for. rngland until after the Session, lie will lemain a member of the Cabinet, assisting his colleaqius in the aiipiooching session, ie&itrning subsequcntlv. Lw.i.k Isi.nt, which thiity jears ago was piacticill}' unknown in Amciica, is now made at "2.100 immense establishments, with ovei l.") 0,000,000 ot dollais invested The value of this production eacli yeai is over 200,000,000 dollais. Fiti \ciimi:n ycaily consume, it is estimated, about K),000,000 francs woith of Amcnean poik, and it is only since its liittoduction into Fiance that the masses of the people have been able to get meat to eat over thiee or four tunes a year. A .Scotch nobleman, who is by no means ovei whelmingly opulent, and hasa Luge family, sent a cinque for IMOO ) to the Chaucelloi of the 15nti»h Kxchoquer, to be devoted to tlie ieduction of the national debt Tin statement that thcie is a dpficit of about HbO 0 in the accounts of the lecpnt A lenna Electncal Exhibition may act as a w ai mug to those w ho ai c inclined to piomote shows of the kind. The more solid finns of exhibitois are beginning to see that they gain nothing by these exhibitions, foi the ciders leceived baiely pay for the o'ltlay. " Si'okism \\ " w lites toaßydney paper to say that ho gives way to no one in his thoiouch admitation of the wondeiful skill of then acquatic visitor, Hanlan, but at the same time dcpiocates most .stiont'ly the slavish woi-lup be spatteied up< n this heto of bone and muscle, who, to use his own words, came out here to make money."

Thk Cavi: Tradk. — The trade of the Cape Colony Ins fallen off to such an extent that, instead of giving full employment for a fast line of fourteen largp steameis, si\- aiv now found to be ample. The net earnings of tlie Union Steamship Company have diopped from ■£]50,000 to £.")fl,ooo. No w onder it pays no dividend. Under these ciicun. stances the Uiiectors ha\e been casting about for new loutes, and have found one between Liverpool, Azores, Bermuda, and Newpoi t News. It has been discoveied that labour is cheap in the Azoies, men being obtainable for 7d a day, w hereas further across the water, at Newport News, about two hundred miles fiom New York, where there are laign collieiies, labour is scarce, though the wages efferecl aie at the rate of 7s aday. The Union Steam Company has undertaken, theiefore, to transplant labouieis horn wheie, appaiently, they are not much wanted to wheie they are in demand at high wages. The Azores has a population of only 120,000 souls, and whether the Portuguese Government, to whom the ialands belong, will acquiesce in their depopulation is a question which may yet be raised. Hitherto the Company has confined itself to the Cape, but, like other Companies, it is learning tlie lesson that it should not place its sole dependence upon one route. The Peninsular and Oriental attributes its steady dividends to the variety of its routes, If trade is depressed in one direction, it has generally found counterbalancing prosperity in an another,—Pall jNkU Gazette,