May 12.
SUNDAY was Buddhi birthday and according to decree of General Ho Feng-ling it ws to be celebrated by a prohibition of Kdlling animals for food on that day, This is but one of many indications that there is a revival of interest in the Buddhist faith.
Even casual observer may have noticed" of late an increasing number of processions of pilgrims wearing a distinctive badge, a yellow sash or some similar de-oration, wending their way to one of the more famous temples the vicinity of Shanghai. Those excursionists who spent their Easter holidays in Hangchow were impressed "with the vast crowds of devotees thronging the streets of Marco Polo's Kinsay, that Mecca of Chinese Buddhists.
Tt is not only the common people who are showing renewed interest in the ancient but borrowed religion, Many prominent scholars in China, apparently weary of the ponderous platitudes of Confucianism with their parrot-like iteration. "the Master said," are tioning to the teachings. of Gautama and, evidently, finding there a sat faction denied them in the cold materialism of the Classics.
'There has recently come' to Shanghai the third fascicule of the French savant, Henri Cordier's great work, the Bibliotheca Sinica, and each of the three unoccupied pages of the cover contains a full page advertisement of separate books on Buddhist philosophy to be issued shortly by distinguished French scholars. Wo have also on our table for review an English translation of a book on the "Mahayana Doctrines of Salvation" by a German doctor. Lastly, we note that even missionary writers show much more tenderness in discussing Buddhism than used to be the case, They, too, seem to have discovered something akin to tions of the Indian Sage, is not to be wondered at. eternal unrest of humanity, the riddle of the sphinx, fs the same {n all ages and in all climes. Man {a a restless, insatiable being. All other animals, having their appetites satisfied, are contented, Im the heart of man alone deep ries unto deep and he reaches four towards the infinity that always eludes him. It is this unfsfied craving that religion seeks to meet and, the need being, the same, the proposed remedies necessarily bear a certain resemblance to each other.
To refrain from the slaughter of animals seems, a fitting com memoration of the birthday of that teacher whose chief characteristic was gentleness. It would be only good for the least religious amongst us to refrain at cé#tain times from animal food and'even a smattering of Bud-@hist philosophy might make us better than we are. To the down right'Briton-a thing either is or itis not... He is a person of sharp. angles and clear cut corner: Contrariwise, Buddha taught that athing is and it is not. is not and it is not is not. The Buddhist, therefore, is not a cantankerous positive individual who Knows all there is to know about ery
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.