A COMPOSITE PICTURE

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serpents. A man has fallen into the well. He is kept from sinking and drowning by holding on to the end of a frail branch which descends from the tree. As he holds on, the honey drops down to his lips, and so absorbed is he with the sweetness of this honey that he does not notice the serpents gathering near him, nor a rat above gnawing the slender limb he clings to, nor an elephant whose trunk is about to pull down the entire tree; nor does he regard at all a holy teacher with his staff offering to save him. This holy man is in the garb of a Buddhist priest, but he has beard and hair much like an early conventionalized Christ, and a sort of aspersoir under his left arm. I suspect the picture to be composite, - Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Catholicism perverting some simple fable reminding man that he may be so absorbed in one pleasure or passion as to suffer by the atrophy of other senses and faculties. It may be feared that unphilosophical little Jains are brought up with some suspicion that sweet things generally are wicked and dangerous. When we go back to the earliest ages we find more religion of joy than in the modern world: it is so in the Vedic hymns and Zend litanies.

While Christianity, claiming to have come into the world with glad tidings of great joy to all mankind, has shed more blood and caused more misery than all other religions put together, the Buddhist religion, beginning with a philosophy that seems pessimistic, without deity or faith in any paradise, heavenly or millennial,- has produced the happiest believers on earth. Many a Christian child moping under a miserable Sabbath, forbidden games and sports, overshadowed by equal fear of deity and devil, giving his pennies or dimes to send his gloom to Ceylon's isle, ah, many a child might envy the joyous

innocence of those children in Ceylon, growing up under the spirit of the ancient carol derived from Buddha:

This is what should be done by him who is wise in seeking his own good, and gaining a knowledge of the tranquil lot of Nirvana:

Let him be diligent, upright, and conscientious; not vainglorious, but gentle and lowly;

Contented and cheerful; not oppressed with cares; not burdened with riches; tranquil, prudent, free from arrogance and avarice.

Let him not do any mean action, nor incur the reproval of wise men.

Let all creatures be prosperous and happy, let them be of joyful mind; all beings that have life, be they feeble or strong, be they minute or vast:

Seen or unseen, near or afar, born or seeking birth, let all beings be joyful.

Let no man deceive another; let none be harsh to any; let none wish ill to his neighbour.

Let the love that fills a mother's heart as she watches over an only child, even such love animate all towards all.

Let the good will that is boundless, immeasurable, impartial, unmixed with enmity, prevail throughout the world-above, below, around.

If a man be of this mind, wherever he moves, and in every moment, the saying is come to pass, "This place is the abode of holiness."

CHAPTER X

Adyar - Mme. Blavatsky and her confession-The Theosophists - An American receiving the Buddhist pansala - The attempted fraud on the Broughtons - Letter, of Commissioner Broughton - Origin of Koothoomi- Revelations of Mme. Coulomb.

W

HEN Mme. Blavatsky was on her way from New

York to India she stopped for some days in London, and my wife and I were invited to meet her at the house of Mr. and Mrs. William Tebb. Mrs. Conway was not attracted by her, but I found her entertaining. She had nothing that could be described as culture; and though the work, "Isis Unveiled," ascribed to her, was without value to me so far as I read it, I have never believed she could write anything so elaborate. In fact, though Mme. Blavatsky was entertaining, it was because of her gossipy knowledge of contemporary persons and events. Such at any rate was the kind of conversation she carried on with myself, and I wondered how my thoughtful friends, the Tebbs, could take her so seriously.

After a time reports came from India of Mme. Blavatsky's new religion called Theosophy, and of her miracles. Marion Crawford introduced a mysterious "Mahatma " into his romance, "Mr. Isaacs," and was proudly claimed. by Theosophists (whom, however, and their wonders he ridiculed in conversation on my mentioning the matter). At length Mr. Sinnett came to London from India as an apostle of the new faith, of which he gave strange narratives, mostly to the élite gathered in fashionable drawingrooms. I listened to several of his addresses, and after one in which he told of the wonderful Mahatmas, who