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No. II.

Churches.

Terence's aphorism, quoted above, comes to mind when one desires to say something about the religions of mankind. Every race has its religion, and behind all religions there is a vast past. "Our creeds," far more than "our deeds," still "travel with us from afar." St. George Impart in his book on "Contemporary Evolution," and Professor J. G. Fraser in the "Golden Bough" and in "Psyche," etc., both tell us how far back the roots of popular religions extend.

When I visited the Buddhist temples in Ceylon this truth came home to me. The Buddhists of the present day have beliefs and practices that were quite foreign to the ancient Gautama and his immediate followers. They do not follow the rules he laid down, but, incorporated in their religion, there are beliefs and practices he would not have sanctioned, and which he spent his life in condemning. But is that not always what comes after some generations, amongst the followers of a religious reformer? In the Buddhist temples of to-day there are images and pictures of what appears, it is said, in Hell, the tortures inflicted on sinners. Looking at the pictures they seem as if reproduced from a little pamphlet that was published, by Christians, some 20 or 30 years ago; and in these temples Buddha—the Lord Buddha—is worshipped as a god, and sacrifices of flowers, etc., are made to his image. There are monks, too, living near page 10 the temples, who have made the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. A Buddhist, who was my guide, said they were holy men, who lived an ascetic life on only one meal a day, and who spent their time in prayer, etc. And no doubt they are just as devoted as monks and ascetics in other countries. The ascetic life appeals to some in all civilisations. Have we not all read Tennyson's "St. Simeon Stylites," and was there not an ancient Greek, a Diogenes, and in Palestine the Esscnes?

All Buddhist temples have images of the Buddha. Some of these are very large, and Buddha is in a reclining position. The temples have much tesselatcd work, are clean, and have shrines, and, as I have said, pictures. How different from what Buddha preached? Perhaps the best little book to read in order to get an idea of the early Buddhism is that of Professor T. W. Rhys-Davids, published by Archibald Constable and Company, in the "Religions Ancient and Modern" series. From it we will learn that Buddha did not teach either prayer or sacrifice. "The Eightfold Path" was: "Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Mode of Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Rapture," and, as Professor David says in the early Buddhism, "There is not a word about God or the soul, not a word about Buddha or Buddhism." Now Buddha is a god, and there are tales of future punishment, and prayers and shrines, and sacrifices and monks, etc., etc The things that Gautama denounced are present in Buddhism, and he has been made a god! To understand how this has happened, one has only to become acquainted with the religions that preceded Gautama's preaching, and with what has ever occurred after the promulgation of a new faith. The old cult influences the new, and becomes incorporated with it.

There are many Buddhist temples, and as all visitors give some coins to the keepers it is profitable to have temples near where tourists visit. So much is this the case that I was told a new temple had been erected near page 11 Mount Lavinia for the benefit of the tourists. The Cingalese are mainly Buddhists. There are, however, Christian missions with converts attached to them, and there are Hindus with their temples, and some Mohammedans and their mosques. It does not seem to me that the religion of the natives makes much difference in their conduct. In coming back from Mount Lavinia to Colombo in a rickshaw, which I had taken so as to go off the main road and visit the many temples on the way, my rickshaw man felt the heat oppressive. It was intensely hot, and with the bush on each side of the road there was no breeze to cool the air. The driver of a passing carriage was accosted by my rickshaw man, and the result was that he was allowed to fix his rickshaw to the tail of the carriage, and we thus got a pull for about a couple of miles, when we stopped to visit a Hindu temple. I asked the rickshaw man what he would have to pay, and he said: "Oh, nothing, I give him drink when we go to Colombo." "But," I said, "you are, I understand, a Buddhist, and a Buddhist does not drink." "Yes," he answered, "but he Christian."

In the Hindu temples there are images of the gods of the Hindus, and which have been made known to us by small images and pictures, and these temples have their attendants, who expect some small payment for the view of their sacred places.

There are in Colombo various Christian temples, Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, and I saw one mosque.

At Port Said I visited the Greek Church. It was Easter Sunday, and the church was crowded. In the outer porch a great trade was being carried on in the sale of candles—candles that had been blessed by the priests, and which, in consequence of such blessing, sold for a much greater price than the same candles in a store. The worshippers, with a candle in their hand, approached an icon which was on the right-hand side, and before which many candles were burning, lit the candie and held it before the picture of the saint. On the page 12 left-hand side there was also an ikon with candles before it, but it was not so popular as the one on the right-hand side. At one time there must have been 20 or 30 candles burning in fixed sockets before the popular ikon, and many more were held in the hands of the devout surrounding it. Service was going on. Priests in fine-coloured vestments, and bearded, were flitting backwards and forwards before the altar, on which were candles burning and many flowers. The choir—male voices only—were sonorously singing, the people in half the church were seated, and more men than women, and in the other half people were moving about, some with candles, some chatting, and a few at the sides were kneeling. There were pictures of the cross, but no images, and as it was a bright sunny day, the sun was pouring in and made the candle-light pale. Not half the audience seemed to be following the service. In this service, as in the Buddhist temples, perhaps the "old cults" were represented.

Leaving the Greek Church I went to a mosque, and the contrast was great. Here there was a puritanism in all the surroundings. You had on entrance to put on a covering over your shoes. There were no images, no candles, and individuals were in praying attitude, kneeling towards Mecca. One worshipper, and one only, seated on the ground, was reciting or rather chanting some prayer in a low voice. The priest took us to a back room, and showed us some ancient manuscripts in Arabic, and a long sword which had, it was said, belonged either to Mahommed or one of his immediate followers. At the door were some poor men asking alms. The Mahommedans made you welcome to the mosque. This has not always been so, but I suppose being under British rule they have become more tolerant of the "infidels" than their fathers were. A reference to the Hibbert Journal for April last will show what Moslem sermons are preached nowadays.

I was in many Catholic cathedrals and churches in France. The two prominent buildings in Marseilles are Catholic churches. I was in the Madeleine, Notre Dame, page 13 and the Sacred Heart at Montmartre, etc., in Paris. I was in these churches at various hours and on various days—week days and Sundays—and at early mass, between seven and eight a.m. On none of the occasions were the majority of the worshippers men. I was at a marriage at the Madeleine, at a first communion at Montmartre, etc. The services in these great cathedrals are similar to what we see in Catholic churches in our Dominion. The church in Montmartre is, I think, the grandest church in Paris, though not so beautiful as Notre Dame. It has cost, it is stated, about one and a-half million pounds, and is not yet finished. On the footpath or side-walk opposite its main entrance is erected a bronze monument in an enclosed space. To enter the church you go in a gate a little to the north of this space, and some yards up a slight declivity you enter the church. This bronze monument was erected—so it states in French—to the memory of Chevalier de la Barre, who was executed at 19 years of age, in 1766, for not bowing to a passing church procession. Contemporary history states that it was a wet day, and he did not lift his hat to the passing sacrament. I noticed when I was viewing the monument, two policemen on the footpath opposite, and I accosted them, asking them if the church had erected the monument, for I was thinking of what the Calvinists had done at Champel for Servetus. My question gave them great amusement. In fact, they rolled their bodies about, laughing immoderately, and saying interrogatively "L'Eglise? L'Eglise?" They said it was the municipality, and that there was an anti-clerical majority in the municipality at the time of its erection.

Some of the Parisian Catholic churches, like many of the Anglican churches, are poorly lighted. How different are the Catholic churches in Switzerland. There they are whitewashed, airy, and full of light. I especially refer to the Jesuit Church, and to the Hoffkirche in Lucerne. In one French church there was hardly any light, and gas jets were necessary. It was an old and grimy church, but I have forgotten its name. It lies east in a cross street not far from the Boulevard des Italiens.

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In England I attended many churches, Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregational, Unitarian, etc Two Anglican churches I attended—St. Andrew's, Worthing, and St. Albans, Holborn—were indistinguishable in their services from a Catholic service, only that the dresses seemed more elaborate in the Anglican churches, and more candles were used at some parts of the service. At St. Andrew's, candles, incense, genuflexions, crosses, and other accessories were similar to what is seen at high mass in a Catholic church. At about 10.30 the church meets, and the morning service is hurriedly read. At 11 begins the communion service, in which there is no communion of the members present. I sat in both churches in the front seat, so that I might hear what was said. At neither could the prayers be heard. All I heard was the reading of the gospel and the recital of the Commandments. It was a mass in Catholic form, and the preacher boldly called it a mass, and said, referring to the gospel, that when Christ said to his disciples that he would return to them, he meant returning in the mass, and he was present now on the "altar." The moving from one side to the other of the altar, as it is now called, the holding of the Bible before the priest, with surpliced boys holding candles alongside of the book, on both sides—all seemed strange in an Anglican church, let alone the vestments and incense. In St. Albans no incense was used. In St Albans the Reverend Father Stanton preached. He seemed an earnest and sincere monk, with a wonderful facial expression. His sermon was such as one could have listened to in Peter the Hermit's days. It was all about the shortness of life, and the danger of dying without faith. There was no appeal to the intelligence, but only to what Burns called "the fear of Hell." I heard he was a kindly man to the poor, in a poor parish, and very devoted to his work. Whether the poor in London can be permanently benefited when their intelligence is not appealed to, remains to be seen. One thing that struck me in the church was a large "cover" to the baptismal font. It must have been 20 or 30 feet high, like a large page 15 candle extinguisher, and covered with gold leaf. A little leaflet circulated amongst the worshippers, stated that it was to be consecrated next Sunday, and the Bishop of Stepney, and Archdeacon Sinclair of St. Paul's, were to be present, so the St. Albans ritualism has apparently their sanction. The cost of this cover was about £700, and it has been defrayed wholly by the vicar, out of a present made to him some time previously. To expend £700 on a cover to a baptismal font in a parish where men and women are starving, seemed to me a very peculiar proceeding.

It is practices like those which you see in St. Albans and St. Andrew's that have led to Protestant associations being formed amongst the Anglicans in England. It looks as if what Lord Halifax told Abbe Portal is true, namely, that all the distinctive doctrines of Roman Catholicism, even the supreme jurisdiction of the Holy See and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, are taught "in" the Anglican Church, though not "by" the Church. How clergymen can reconcile such conduct with the law of the Church laid down by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court, the Privy Council, and with the 39 Articles and the Prayer Book, an onlooker does not know. Ritualism appears in a modified form in many other churches. Even in St. Paul's there was an ornate worship that shocked an Australian Anglican who accompanied me to see the service.

In Christ Church, Paddington, I visited the church between seven and eight in the morning. The morning service was just concluding. The service was being held in what in Catholic churches would be called a side chapel. The priest was at the communion table, to use the Prayer Book phrase, on the south side of the church. On this table in its center is an image of Jesus Christ, half life-size, covered with gold leaf, and I noticed those coming in, and leaving the church, all bowing to the image, unless, indeed, they were bowing to the altar, for there was nothing else to make obeisance to. The audience was not large, page 16 about 30 or 40, and only two men were in the congregation, the rest being middle-aged women.

The Communion service was begun as the clock in the church struck eight, and when I heard the priest recite the Second Commandment: "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image .... Thou shalt not bow down to them," etc., and then the response of the people: "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law," I left. The contrast between the prayer and practice was so extraordinary that I could not understand it. Was I in the presence of rational people?