PASSING NOTES.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume I, Issue 42, 1 October 1892, Page 10

PASSING NOTES.

The sages and pundits;withj which the Auckland [province abounds, have been filling up „the columns of the ■" Herald," with effusions on Buddhism and Theosophy. Mr.." Mercutio," the :" Herald " oracle, among- others, makes the Buddhist creed responsible ior. the absurdities dove in the name of Thedsophy; which charlatanism has as much to do with the religion of Gautama as the antics of the Shakers,,or Abe. tenets -of the Muggletqnians have -to do with the; Thirty-niniß Articles/ :" l :I; v - The Theological Bias is the most ineradicable bias of which humanity is •capable. There are very few men, who, beiug brought up to believe in one particulai 1 creed, can 1 ever bring.tbemselves 'to 'believe absolutely in another. They -look at every other creed from their own standpoint, and they cannot look at it from that of the other side. The majority is saidto bein all cases; in the right, at anyrate that is the prevailing translation;of " poxjjopuli vox dei" Yet would 'the Christian creed be if this were the case. More than a third, nearly two-fifths, —close upon five hundred millions, of the human'race live|and di^ in the tenets of Prince Siddartha, the Lordßuddha. His has been a religion -since ;five hundred years before the Christian era, and contains, as Sir Edwin Arnold says, "the eternity of a universal hope—the immortality of a boundless love; an indestructible element of faith in final good.; and the assertion ever made of human freedom." Would fliafc our readers and tha scribblers would read that moh }c poem df the Great Renunciation -—the«story of the Buddha, by Sir Edwin Arnold, " The 'Light of Asia " It 'is one of the sublimest and most glorious epics -ever written in the English language, and lias undoubtedly spread largely throughout the civilised world a knowledge of the tenets of that beautiful creed df the East. IJet none say one word against Buddhism nntil they have read it, and then they cannot. In many df the large cities of the world Buddhist temples have gained ground —even in the Sufhern Hemisphere— and there are many, who, did they think it worth while to label themselves anything at all, would call themselves 'Followers of the Eastern Prince. This creed contains the es?ence df'the words df the Ijaureate in the concluding stanzas of that eminently Christian poem, "In Memoriam"—a belief in :

;One God, on? law, one element, ' Atrd-one far-dff divine event To which the whole creation moves. * * Ifc teaches the eternal -immutability of all things, and has much in common with Christianity— whidh it could not have plagiarised, by the way, being before it—and only differs from ifc in the doctrine of the atonement —of vicarious suffering. Ifc teaches that each, suffers for 'himself—that each is purified by himself. Listen— What has~been, bringeth what shall be, ■- ;• and is Worse—better ; last for first, and first •■ for last. ! .-...- The angels in the heavens of gladness, <reap Fruits of a holy past. ■"''! Before beginning, and without an end, As space eternal, and as surety sure Is freed a power divine_ Which moves to : '' :>:' good' ' ■•'■.,• ■„.,. .'.':' Only, it laws endure. , And again, hark'— Such is theXaw which moves to righteousness, Which none at last-can set aside or stay. The heart of it is love, the end of it Is peace and consummation sweet. Obey*! •#-#,■ One could -quote this magnificent song for pages. Some of you petty narrow creedlings—-some of joa 'bigoted Chadbands — some of you Calvinistic damners of unbaptised what think you of this for a-ereed?—-. : c . If he shtfll day byday'be merciful, Holy and just and kind and true, and ■.: Tend " \ . : " . , . „:'; ■Desir«, from where it clings with bleeding roots, ' Till love of life have enS. : , Think hard abpnt that second line, you vwjbp iliffc up yoiir holy hands against

such a creed as Buddhism. " Holy and just and kind and true." Does it not ■urn up all religion? Ah! who can:^ obey it. ■ ... V All the poets are of the same creed. They :all know, as Voltaire says, " A man's religion consists, not of the many things he tries to believe, but in the few ' things he cannot help, believing." Dear old Leigh Hunt, with his Abou Ben Adhem— k ' '. "' •; , I pray yon then; Write me as one who loves his fellow men* Shakespeare. Pope, Tennyson, Burns, Longfellow, —aye, all of them, from Danl; Chaucer to incomprehensible Swinburne;-, and incongruous Rudyard Kipling—are . all of the one grand creed —the only , creed. Those who are not of it cannot., understand it. As Beaconsfield said, when he was dying, " All sensible men". a^e of one religion, and all sensible men. . must keep that religion to themselves// , They must, because they cannot .impart - it. ■■• ' . .. . . .. All the philosophers from Plato to Herbert Spencer breathe the same true spirit of Catholicism. No > matter ' whether he individualises his Deity as , 1 The poor Indian, whose untutured mind . , Sees God in clouds or hears him iv the wind. , —whether he gives Him the name of Jehovah, Ormuzd, Zeus,' or Jupiter;; whether, like Spencer, he clumsily terms ■ , his Deity "an infinite and eternal energy, . from which all things proceed;" whe-/, ther, like Comte, he sees in Humanity , the highest manifestation of the ■ Deity — they all (happy he who -can Bay,w« all) who possess the true poet-spirit , feel the oneness and -unity of all creeds, - and the smallness and despicability of those who revile creeds suited to the ■ environment of others if unsuitable to their own surroundings; who belittle 'their own professed religion by endea- - vouring to-belittle those of others. * Messenger—A telegram for you, sir. Summer hotel man—Great Scott! A party of 20 pxpeoted here at noon. John, put 10 poands of washing blue in the mineral spring, hang'thoae fish I brought Tpm the city on a line near the pond,, -and give the alligator a little nigger!! Get a move on you, now. *** A comedy in three acts :— ACT I. Yon Ditfrmer-—McCabe—On the 29th July, at the 3Joman Catholic Church, Petersburg, hy the Rev Father Norton, John Leopold, fifth son of H. Yon Dittmer, Esq., J.P., Gilbert street, Adelaide, to Rosa Mary Agnes, fourth daughter of J. L. MacCabe, Esq., Brown street, Adelaide.—" Advertiser," Aug. 4. ACT 11. With reference to a Marriage between John Leopold Yon Dittmer and Bose Mac'Cabe, -in this morning's " Advertiser," I disown the said Yon Dittmer as my son. —H. Yon Dittmer. , August 4, 1892.—" Advertiser, Aug. 5. ACT 111. ' - I am surprised to see by the #t Advertiser" that H. Yon Dittmer disowns his son because, I suppose, he has married Miss MacCabe. If rank counts anything the blood of the MacCabes is quite as pure as that of any Yon Dittmer. Mr Dittmer, sen., is an old man now, and he should abandon these parvenu notions, so-unbecoming.—J. J. O'Brien, a brother-in-law of Mrs Yon Dittmer,, jjun.—" Advertiser," Aug. 6. V - A representative of California in the United Stages Congress tells the following story : —A minister in my district was happily married to a wife very lovely and ladylike, but very deaf. "One day they gave a dinner-party. After dinner they returned to the drawing, room. Among the guests was a Mr Hare. He was standing near the lady whom he had taken in to dinner, and whom he had entertained delightfully. She, not knowing that he was near, re» marked to the hostess, " What a very agreeable man Mr Hare isi" The hostess heard her in a vague, indistinct sort of way, and, thinking the praise was for her room and- not for her company, she replied: " Yes, and so warm and comfortable on a winter's night."