"Almost everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of
Christianity is to be found in Buddhism: images, pictures,
lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside
shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils,
retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders,
habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and
priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation,
pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics
and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., etc.,
etc."[21]
Nevertheless, these resemblances are almost wholly superficial, and have
little or nothing to do with genuine religion. Such matters are of
aesthetic and of commercial, rather than of spiritual, interest. They
concern priestcraft and vulgar superstition rather than truth and
righteousness. "In point of dogma a whole world of thought separates
Buddhism from every form of Christianity. Knowledge, enlightenment, is
the condition of Buddhistic grace, not faith. Self-perfectionment is the
means of salvation, not the vicarious sufferings of a Redeemer. Not
eternal life is the end and active participation in unceasing prayer and
praise, but absorption into Nirvana (Jap.
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