WHICH IS IT TO BE?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8282, 14 June 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHICH IS IT TO BE?

Sir Edwin' Arnold, recently editor of a London morning paper, and Poet-Laureate of Buddhism, has gone to Japan, where he will remain. He is reported to have recently said, "I feel like a bird from a cago. I shall never go back." He said, "We Buddhists neither hope nor fear ; earthquake or banquet is the same to us." He further said, "Japan is infinitely reposeful for lovers of good manners. The Japanese live in an atmosphere of Buddhism without knowing at." Sir Edwin Arnold is not only a Buddhist, but a believer that Buddhism will in future inspire the life of Japan. Isabella Bird (Mrs. Bishop), in an address recently delivered at South-place Institute—the Metropolitan Ethical Church—in speaking of the religious life of Japan, says : —" The easiest and least exacting of religions is passing away ; and now—what will satisfy the spiritual cravings which Buddhism and Christianity have awakened, and who will mould the religious future of Japan? Will it be the ascetic and philosophic Sakyamuni, dead for two thousand years, and serene for ever in his golden shrine, offering a passionless nonentity as the goal of righteousness ? or will it bo Jesus, the crucified Nazarene, holding in His pierced hands the gift of an immortality of unhindered and consecrated activities, the best hope of the wearing ages, to whom, as the Crowned and Risen Christ, through centuries of slow and peaceful progross, all Christendom has bent the adoring knee, and who shall yet reign in righteousness, King of Kings and Lord of Lords J"