Since the manuscript of Buddhist and Christian Gospels was despatched to Japan in September, 1904, I have continued to find parallels between the two great religions. A remarkable one, dis-covered this spring in a Buddhist book newly published by the London Pali Text Society, has called forth the present essay. For fuller information my readers must refer to the Tōkyō book.
Our somewhat provincial education has not yet made us realize that, at the time of Christ, India was one of the four great Powers of the earth. The other three were China, Rome and Parthia. But India was the greatest intellectually, and her then most popular religion, Buddhism, was the dominant spiritual force upon the continent of Asia.
It is to be regretted that so few theologians and even Orientalists are acquainted with Pali literature Our culture has too long been bounded by the River Euphrates, and the central fact of the world's religious history has not yet taken its place in the historical imagination of Europe and America. That central fact is this:-The two greatest missionary religions, each emanating from a wonderful personality, started from the Holy Land of antiquity,* and proceeded in opposite directions around the world. Each went as far as it could go until it reached the Pacific Ocean; and now, in Japan and the United States, these two great world-faiths are facing each other. Henceforth the Pacific Ocean, instead of the Mediterranean Sea, must be the centre of our culture; and the two religions, instead of being enemies, must be friends.
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