We are told, says the Indian Witness, that Buddhism is experiencing a revival. It is not so in China. The length of time that the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus lay wrapped in unconsciousness is nothing to that of the Chinese Buddhists who in fact seem as if they would never wake again. All the vitality observable in China at present is Confucian and Christian, the Buddhist and Taoist religions having nothing to say or fight about. It was settled by the thinkers of the Sung dynasty that there was to be no more persecution of Buddhism. The orthodox Buddhists since that time have laid down their oars and let the boat drift whither it would. In new literature the Confucian voice is triumphant. If superstition is mentioned in recent books it is only to be condemned. Entire scepticism on féngshui is avowed by Confucian writers; although they will not abandon' the practice of it. The local worship of
north and south China in the last few new divinities which has spai in centuries is not imposing enough to be regarded as a Buddhist or Taoist revival, nor is it distinguished by the possession of literature. Some neighbourhoods in the north worship the weasel and the fox, Small temples are erected to them, but they have no: ritual or priests. In Central China there are places where the worship of particular divinities has been introduced and is maintained. still. But the voice of unbelief in newspaper articles in regard to such divinities is louder than the voice of faith, Indeed the fact that the people like to honour the fox or some such god and take up readily the worship of new divinities who may be men, women or animals, shows that Buddhism has very little living power in the country. Nor do native Buddhist authors of repute appear in this age to give their religion an aspect of life and progress.
It is not at all impossible that Buddhis has less vitality in China than in other countries. We now hear of a Buddhist from Ceylon giving a lecture in the Albert Hall, Kensington, and declaring that after seven centuries of silence the bell of Buddhist revival is to be struck in India, He says that the present is an age of increased intellectual activity and of more ready toleration of differing opinions, and it is his view just the time for an idealism tic system such as Buddhism to make renewed progress. He may think thi but it is hard to believe in its possibility. heosophists are very few in numbers and in the spread of theosophy, as a form of European Buddhism, no way is made. In Asia the strength of Buddhism is not in its idealism, its atheism, or its denial of the existence of matter, but in the monastic life which offers attractions to those whom the misfortunes of life have rendered unhappy. The lecturer visited the birthplaceof Buddhaincompany with japanese Buddhist, It was Buddha Gaya in Behar, and they found it uncared for and as.desolate as possible. In consequence of the efforts made by these two mea, four Ceylon Buddhists went to reside there and a plot of ground was purchased for their residence. Joint: letters were. written by the lecturer and his friend, the Fapanese priest, addressed to the: Bud-diiists of Japan, Siam, Burma, and Ceylon. The object was to awaken interest in the state of the Buddhist sacred places, and to arratigé for the support of a monastery on. thé"spot: to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.