this same vagueness of conviction characterizes all the heathen systems of the East.  The Buddhists and the Shintoists in Japan justify their easy-going partnership by the favorite maxim that, while “there are many paths by which men climb the sides of Fusyama, yet upon reaching the summit they all behold the same glorious moon.”  The question whether all do in fact reach the summit is one which does not occur to an Oriental to ask.

This same pantheistic charity is seen in the well-known appeal of the late Chunder Sen, which as an illustration is worth repeating here:  “Cheshub Chunder Sen, servant of God, called to be an apostle of the Church of the New Dispensation, which is in the holy city of Calcutta; to all the great nations of the world and to the chief religious sects in the East and West, to the followers of Moses and of Jesus, of Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Nanak, and of the various Hindu sects; grace be to you and peace everlasting.  Whereas sects, discords, and strange schisms prevail in our father’s family; and whereas this setting of brother against brother has proved the prolific source of evil, it has pleased God to send into the world a message of peace and reconciliation.  This New Dispensation He has vouchsafed to us in the East, and we have been commanded to bear witness to the nations of the earth ...  Thus saith the Lord:  ’I abominate sects and desire love and concord ...  I have at sundry times spoken through my prophets and my many dispensations.  There is unity.  There is one music but many instruments, one body but many members, one spirit but many gifts, one blood but many nations, one Church but many churches.  Let Asia and Europe and America and all nations prove this New Dispensation and the true fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men.’”

This remarkable production—­so Pauline in style and so far from Paul in doctrine—­seems to possess everything except definite and robust conviction.  And its limp philosophy was not sufficient to withhold even Chunder Sen himself from the abandonment of his principles not long afterward.  This sweet perfume of false charity, with which he thus gently sprayed the sects and nations of mankind, lost its flavor ere the ink of his message was fairly dry; while he who in similar language announced his call to an Apostleship eighteen centuries ago, is still turning the world upside down.

“Charity” is the watchword of indifferentism in the West as well as in the East; and the East and the West are joining hands in their effort to soothe the world into slumber with all its sins and woes unhealed.  Some months ago an advanced Unitarian from Boston delivered a farewell address to the Buddhists of Japan, in which he presented three great Unitarians of New England—­Channing, Emerson, and Parker—­in a sort of transfiguration of gentleness and charity.  He maintained that the lives of these men had been an unconscious prophecy of that mild and gentle Buddhism which he had found in Japan, but of which they had died without the sight.[76]