in another world can hardly be less wonderful than to have waked up in this. Time and again it is recorded of Jesus that He marvelled at their unbelief. To Jesus unbelief was a strange and marvellous thing. He considered it most natural that men should believe in prayer, in the new birth, in the future life, in all the great spiritual verities of the kingdom. No, Materialism does not cross this ocean. It takes us part way and dumps us in the deep. Materialism is an ocean liner condemned and bound for the bottom. ORIENTALISM Some to-day have a wondrous liking for Orientalism and Hindu philosophy. But Hindu philosophy teaches that we must not wish to live again. Hindu philosophy does not teach us to love life; rather does it discourse the opposite: it teaches that the ideal is to hate life. The supreme desire of the disciples of this cult is to kill the love of life and the effort to prolong it, and to pass at length into the sleep of absorption. The universe is one great soul, they claim, from which all other souls have broken away. These wander about in misery, finding bodies as they may and having no rest until they return to the Original Soul. This is the doctrine of re-incarnation. There are millions at the present time with whom it is, in some phase or other, a religion; viz. that life is bad, full of sorrow, full of pain; that we ought not wish to live again, and that, only when we have reached that lofty state in which we can truly say that we do not wish to live again, have we won the victory. Instance Buddhism. Buddhism is the highest type of Orientalism, approaching nearer to Christianity than any other heathen conception. Without doubt there are many lovely things in it, but what of comfort? To the Buddhist the world is a great hospital, with an all-devouring fire raging through, never extinguished, never abating. Nothing seems able to quench the flames. The only hope is in becoming steeled and insensible to their ravages. Reduce existence to a vanishing point. "Kill all craving," says Buddha. Kill the craving for success, the craving of the appetites, the craving of the passions, the craving of the affections. Get rid of the love of life here and hereafter, if you would be happy. Through and through it is a negative philosophy; its keynote being death, not life. Existence is a curse to be evaded, not, as Jesus proclaimed, a blessedness that we are to strive to make eternal; its peace is the peace of extinction, the peace of the Christian contrari wise being the peace of satisfaction. It teaches man seeking God; but never yet has it arisen to the loftier level of God seeking man. It proclaims war against suffering not sin. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. How? By self-obliteration and selferasement. This is its controlling note! The heaven thereof is Nirvana, and Nirvana means selflessness, unconsciousness, nothingness. The soul that is purified perfectly before death enjoys Nirvana already, and after dissolution will experience no further birth. Surely we are wandering not far afield in charging that this is a comfortless appeal, and disheartening; leaving as it does no place for prayer, no hope for love, no song for the cemetery. The best that can be said for it is that it is a message of pity, and pity is an easilystirred, short-lived emotion. "Take me and lull me into perfect sleep; Down, down, far hidden in thy duskiest cave; The restful rapture of the inviolate grave.” Many there be to-day who speak wistfully of melting at death into the infinite azure. Not such our fond mother who lost her babe yester morn. She hungered to clasp her darling and cuddle her to her breast. She thirsted to kiss those little pink cheeks. Her greed for the child was voracious. "Communion in spirit: forgive me; But I who am earthly and weak Would give all my income from dreamland This solar system of ours rolls and tosses through a luminiferous medium we call the ether; Ah, but richer, rarer far, is that other medium in which the heart moves. Love is it. Love glorifies the world. Love is the light and the life and the hope and the glory of the world. And Buddhism is the burial of love. 66 It satisfies my longings." Nay, nay, this is just the trouble. Nothing satisfies my longings but love, eternal love, immortal love. Naught is there in all this universe to account for mother-love, unless, at the heart of it, there is the Infinite Mother Love. Extermination is poor, dry chaff, with which to feed the heart hungering for love. Death as an ultimate is life's supreme sarcasm. Dreamless repose is the reductio ad absurdum of all faith in a moral Governor. CHRISTIANITY The Bible is an historical book. It is a narrative of the progress of God's kingdom on the earth. It is a biography of Jesus and is thus a record of facts, dates, doings, sayings. To-day there is a leaning to get away from the literal and substantial. Just as the chemist volatilises metal, so the religious teacher sometimes volatilises his faith and makes it unreal. Buddhism is volatilised religion. Thomas De Quincey said of Coleridge, "He wants better bread than can be made with wheat." Some there are thus-minded in spiritual things; they want better bread than can be made with wheat. The resurrection of Jesus Christ I take it is the best bread that can be made with wheat. It is as strong as evidence can make it. It is sensible, palpable, tangible. I do not wish to "melt into the infinite azure or to be transfused into a rainbow," or to slip into dreamless, insensate repose. I prefer to keep firm hold of the definite. I prefer the testimony of Mary and Martha and Luke and John and Mark and Cephas and Paul. I accept the history as ultimate. The greatest thing in this world is man, the greatest man is Jesus, the greatest fact is His resurrection; it is the climax of His magnificent life; it is the credential of His colossal claims; it is the basal block of the whole Christian superstructure, for the Church is not built on the birth of Jesus, not on His life, not on His teaching, not on His death, but |