[Footnote 1:  See ante, Vol.  I. Part III. ch. viii. p. 378.]

On comparing this system with other prevailing religions which divide with it the worship of the East, Buddhism at once vindicates its own superiority, not only by the purity of its code of morals, but by its freedom from the fanatical intolerance of the Mahometans and its abhorrent rejection of the revolting rites of the Brahmanical faith.  But mild and benevolent as are its aspects and design, its theories have failed to realise in practice the reign of virtue which they proclaim.  Beautiful as is the body of its doctrines, it wants the vivifying energy and soul which are essential to ensure its ascendancy and power.  Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however calculated to exercise the faculties of anchorets and ascetics, have proved insufficient of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher hopes and by a faith that penetrates eternity, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless failure.  The inculcation of the social virtues as the consummation of happiness here and hereafter, suggests an object sufficiently attractive for the bulk of mankind; but Buddhism presents along with it no adequate knowledge of the means which are indispensable for its attainment.  In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give way; and affords no consoling support under those overwhelming afflictions by which the spirit is prostrated and subdued, when unaided by the influence of a purer faith and unsustained by its confidence in a diviner power.  From the contemplation of the Buddhist all the awful and unending realities of a future life are withdrawn—­his hopes and his fears are at once mean and circumscribed; the rewards held in prospect by his creed are insufficient to incite him to virtue; and its punishments too remote to deter him from vice.  Thus, insufficient for time, and rejecting eternity, the utmost triumph of his religion is to live without fear and to die without hope.

Both socially and in its effects upon individuals, the result of the system in Ceylon has been apathy almost approaching to infidelity.  Even as regards the tenets of their creed, the mass of the population exhibit the profoundest ignorance and manifest the most irreverent indifference.  In their daily intercourse and acts, morality and virtue, so far from being apparent as the rule, are barely discernible as the exception.  Neither hopes nor apprehensions have proved a sufficient restraint on the habitual violation of all those precepts of charity and honesty, of purity and truth, which form the very essence of their doctrine; and in proportion as its tenets have been slighted by the people, its priesthood are disregarded, and its temples neglected.