prohibits all actual injury which we should resent if inflicted on ourselves. But it also enjoins active benevolence; for as we do not like the lack of kindness towards ourselves when in distress or want, so we must not be guilty of showing such lack of kindness to others. Take the parable of the good Samaritan, told in illustration of the kindred maxim to love our neighbors as ourselves. Plainly we should not like the conduct of the priest and the Levite were we in the situation of the plundered man. And if so, the behavior of the good Samaritan is that which the Chinese as well as the Jewish prophet would require us to pursue.
Much more might be said of the doctrines of Jesus, but it is time to bring this over-long section to a close. What answer shall we now return to the query which stands at the head of this final division. What are we to think of him? Is our judgment to be mainly favorable or mainly unfavorable? or must it be a mixture of opposing sentiments? The reply may be given under three separate heads, relating the one to his work as a prophet, the next to his intellectual, and the last to his moral character. Considered as a prophet, he forms one of a mighty triad who divide among them the honor of having given their religions to the larger portion of Asia and to the whole of Europe. Confucius, to whom Eastern Asia owes its most prevalent faith; Buddha Sakyamuni, whose faith is accepted in the south and centre of that continent; and Christ, to whom Europe bows the knee, are the members of this great trinity not in unity. All three are alike in their possession of prophetic ardor and prophetic inspiration. Two of them, the Chinaman and the Jew, speak as the conscious agents of a higher Power. The other, of whom his creed prevents us from saying this, is yet represented in his story as predestined to a great mission, becoming aware of that destiny at a certain epoch of his life, and thenceforth feeling that no temptations and no sufferings can induce him to swerve from his allotted task. Of these three men it would perhaps be accurate to say that Confucius was the most thoughtful, Sakyamuni the most eminently virtuous, and Christ the most deeply religious. Not that a description like this can be regarded as exhaustive. Each trespasses to some degree on the special domain of the
