NEW RELIGION.

There is perhaps no side of modern life which presents at once such ridiculous and such pathetic aspects as the craving shown in many quarters for a new religion. It is not clear that what is wanted is a higher or a better religion. What is imperatively desired is that it be new. The feeling is shown in many different sections of society, from the earnest perplexed thinker, pining for a new reading of the riddle of the universe, to the fashionable young lady who pleasantly prattles at the dinner-table of the mysteries of esoteric Buddhism, of which kind, she knows so much more than of that which is open to the world. In this strange spiritual quest men have turned both to the East and to the West,—to the East, as the great mother of all the old religions ; to the West, which has lately aspired to the coming of a new creed, adapted to modern thought, if not to science, at any rate to the jargon of science, to a business age, and to the rule of democracy. An eminent American divine being lately asked, how it was that the preachers of his nation laid so little stress on the doctrine of eternal punishment, replied, "Sir, our people wouldn't stand it." The first requirement of a new religion under democratic rule is something that the sovereign people can stand. The productive efforts of America in this direction, Mormonism, Spiritualism, Shakerism, and the rest, have not been highly successful. However we may admire the great practical gifts of our American kinsmen and their wonderful powers of production, we would rather not see them endeavouring to produce new religions. They touch little in spiritual matters which they do not vulgarise. Their efforts to produce a new faith uncommonly resemble those of Mr. WALT WHITMAN to give the world a new form of poetry based on democratic principles, and both are at present far from successful.

America thus failing to supply in a direct way a consolation to the unrest and troubles of a time which we have been told is "destitute of faith but terrified at scepticism," what we have seen is that strange turning again towards the East and demanding thence a new creed. Of this tendency the late Mr. LAURENCE OLIPHANT was a curious example, and fairly illustrated its intellectual restlessness, its craving for novelty, its curiosity, and we fear we must add its spiritual flippancy and want of true sincerity. The East, which, in its immobile repose, " its patient, deep disdain," is but little disturbed by the intellectual questionings of the West, which it regards as utterly given over to coarse materialism, has of course no new religion to give in answer to so puerile a demand. This failing, what is next attempted is to construct, with the aid of popular science and modern philosophy, a new Asiatic creed out of one of the old ones. The faith to which attention has been chiefly turned has been Buddhism, and accounts have lately been published probably highly exaggerated ones—of the spread which Buddhistic doctrines are making in Europe. Some months ago M. LECONTE ROSNY, a professor of the Sorbonne, in France, announced to the world the fact, which he thought to be important, of his conversion to Buddhism— not the esoteric variety, but the genuine creed of many Asiatic peoples. This creed, he declared, was the one which it is " least difficult to reconcile with science." The recognition of this paramount necessity touchingly illustrates the difficulties which beset the establishment of a new religion at the present day. The great founders of religions, SAKYA MUNI, MAHOMET, CONFUCIUS, thought little of this requirement, and recognised no authority superior to religion itself. It was also announced that a congress of French Buddhists was to be held at Paris, at which it was stated that thirty or forty thousand believers would be represented. We are not aware what likelihood there is of this intention being realised. But the bare idea of holding a congress of French Buddhists in the city of VOLTAIRE, the home of scepticism, and the birthplace of persiflage, conveys a shock to the historic imagination. It will be remembered that some years ago Archbishop TAIT thought it desirable to issue an appeal to the youth of Britain at the universities not to allow their faith to be weakened by association with the cultivated young Buddhist or Brahmanistic students from the East, a caution which at the time seemed to many quite a supererogatory one. Is it possible that among the credulities of a sceptical age is to be counted a spread of Buddhism in Europe? Is Sir EDWIN ARNOLD to be the MILTON of a new faith, and is the " Light of Asia " to stand as another "Paradise Lost"? Have these easy converts ever thought for a moment what would be the result on the historic documents of Buddhism of the pitiless criticism which has been directed for two centuries on the books of Christianity?

Buddhists of this stamp are, it appears, careful to repudiate any recognition of the "occultism " which constitutes its great charm to another class of minds. We may fairly attribute their attitude to the modern repugnance to the miraculous element. Miracles, it was announced by Mr. MATTHEW ARNOLD, in all the emphasis of italics, "do not happen." The counter-announcement of esoteric Buddhism is that they happen, in American phrase, "every time," and are the commonest things in the world. An adept who has mastered the lore of the Thibetan sages, who modestly confine their knowledge and their powers to the frozen parses of the Himalayas, throws off a miracle with ease when desiring to present a ring to a friend or to supply the want of a teacup at a picnic. BURKE, as a political philosopher, gave a warning against " making the last medicine of the constitution its daily bread." The spirit of this caution is equally applicable to a too free use of the supernatural on the part of religious teachers. Miracles are apt to lose their compelling power when too lightly or too trivially used. There is, indeed, even in the West, a frame of mind which regards miracles in a very different way from Mr. MATTHEW ARNOLD.  Mr. RUSKIN is credited with the remark, in reply to the question whether he would not think it a miracle if the sun stopped its diurnal course : " Not at all. I have always been expecting to see it stop. The wonder to me is that it still goes on." All will agree that if the Mahatmas of Thibet possess the wondrous powers which are so liberally ascribed to them by their Theosophic disciples, it is well for us that they are so chary in their employment of them. When we remember that these sages could, by the mere exercise of their will, so deflect the trajectory of a cannon shot as to change the course of history, and could, by their invisible interference with the forces of the world, reduce all the conclusions of modern science to utter futility and confusion, we may well be thankful for their moderation.

The question suggests itself. Is there anything in the world that is at once "esoteric" and of use or importance to mankind? Has there ever been ? Glance from the religious "mysteries" of ancient times through the secret societies and brotherhoods of the Middle Ages and the Renascence, and can it be said of one of them that it ever beneficially influenced the course of humanity ? It was not as esoteric matters reserved for a select few that the great religions of the world were taught. Christianity was preached on a mount. SAKYA MUNI, the founder of Buddhism, taught the duty of renunciation and the bliss of Nirvana,

Nameless quiet, nameless joy,
Blessed Nirvana sinless, stirless rest—
That change which never changes,

as a pilgrim teacher through the forests and over the plains of India. Doubtless religions recognise differences of receptivity and differences of obligation on the part of their disciples. "The old Catholics," said Felix Holt in GEORGE ELIOT'S novel, "are right with their higher rule and their lower. Some are called to subject themselves to a harder discipline, and renounce things voluntarily which are lawful for others." But this is widely dissimilar from the method of locking up all the highest moral truths and all profound natural knowledge, to be held only by a privileged few, and by them only on condition of their never using it. This has not been the procedure of any great religion except, perhaps, after its debasement into priestcraft. It has not been the method of the science which has re-shaped the life and the thought of the modern world. And what is to be feared in these unbelieving times is, that those who take the trouble to think at all seriously upon Theosophy and Occult Buddhism will be harassed by doubt how much of this secret wisdom in really possessed by the recluse sages of Thibet, and how much has been imagined for them by the ingenious American intellects which have had so much to do with the discovery, we cannot say with the utilisation, of all this hidden lore.

The Sydney Morning Herald 16 May 1891,