obtained by intellectual submission, by passive reception of what is taught us and done for us by others:  the Buddhist and Protestant believe it must be accomplished by an intelligent and free obedience to Divine laws.  Mr. Hodgson, who has long studied the features of this religion in Nepaul, says:  “The one infallible diagnostic of Buddhism is a belief in the infinite capacity of the human intellect.”  The name of Buddha means the Intelligent One, or the one who is wide awake.  And herein also is another resemblance to Protestantism, which emphasizes so strongly the value of free thought and the seeking after truth.  In Judaism we find two spiritual powers,—­the prophet and the priest.  The priest is the organ of the pardoning and saving love of God; the prophet, of his inspiring truth.  In the European Reformation, the prophet revolting against the priest founded Protestantism; in the Asiatic Reformation he founded Buddhism.  Finally, Brahmanism and the Roman Catholic Church are more religious; Buddhism and Protestant Christianity, more moral.  Such, sketched in broad outline, is the justification for the title of this chapter; but we shall be more convinced of its accuracy after looking more closely into the resemblances above indicated between the religious ceremonies of the East and West.

These resemblances are chiefly between the Buddhists and the monastic orders of the Church of Rome.  Now it is a fact, but one which has never been sufficiently noticed, that the whole monastic system of Rome is based on a principle foreign to the essential ideas of that church.  The fundamental doctrine of Rome is that of salvation by sacraments.  This alone justifies its maxim, that “out of communion with the Church there is no salvation.”  The sacrament of Baptism regenerates the soul; the sacrament of Penance purifies it from mortal sin; the sacrament of the Eucharist renews its life; and that of Holy Orders qualifies the priest for administering these and the other sacraments.  But if the soul is saved by sacraments, duly administered and received, why go into a religious order to save the soul?  Why seek by special acts of piety, self-denial, and separation from the world that which comes sufficiently through the usual sacraments of the church?  The more we examine this subject, the more we shall see that the whole monastic system of the Church of Rome is an included Protestantism, or a Protestantism within the church.

Many of the reformers before the Reformation were monks.  Savonarola, St. Bernard, Luther himself, were monks.  From the monasteries came many of the leaders of the Reformation.  The Protestant element in the Romish Church was shut up in monasteries during many centuries, and remained there as a foreign substance, an alien element included in the vast body.  When a bullet, or other foreign substance, is lodged in the flesh, the vital powers go to work and build up a little wall around it, and shut it in.  So