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 Cornell University Library 
 BL 1430.H67 
 
 Buddhism as known in Cjjj|jjj|L, 
 
 3 1924 022 928 844 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022928844 
 
BUDDHISM 
 
 ,AS KIOH IN CHINA. 
 
 JOHN NEWENHAM HOARE, M.A. 
 
 ^^^-z^L 
 
 " Higher still and ever higher, 
 Let thy soaring flight aspire, 
 Toward the Perfectness Supreme, 
 Goal of saints' and sages' dream." 
 
 . Dean Stanley. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
Wf7 
 
 \|J iS03i 
 
 7%« Essay forms one of a Series of Lectures on Pre-Christian 
 Religions, delivered in the Churches of Holy Trinity, Brampton, 
 and S. Jude, Whitechapel. 
 
BUDDHISM AS KNOWN IN CHINA. 
 
 TN the year 1875 there was delivered, at the Library of the 
 - 1 - India Office in London, a collection of books in seven large 
 boxes, carefully packed in lead, with padding of dry rushes and 
 grass. The books are the Buddhist Tripitaka in Chinese char- 
 acters, with Japanese notations, issued in Japan, with an Im- 
 perial Preface, in the years 1681-1683 a.d. The entire series 
 of 2000 volumes is contained in 103 cases or covers. When 
 placed in the library, they required eleven shelves of ten feet in 
 length. This was the magnificent gift of the Japanese Govern- 
 ment to England, made on the suggestion of the ambassador 
 who had recently visited Europe. He had doubtless been 
 struck by the anomaly between the intense desire of the English 
 to convert the heathen, and their profound ignorance of all reli- 
 gions except their own, and especially of the one which most 
 closely resembles it, the state religion of his own country, Bud- 
 dhism. The Kev. Samuel Beal requested him to solicit the 
 gift. No more appropriate gift could have been sent ; and the 
 Secretary of State directed Mr. Beal, Professor of Chinese in the 
 University of London, to prepare a "compendious report of the 
 Buddhist Tripitaka." The result of his labours is the catalogue 
 raisonne* Professor Beal is well known as one of the first 
 Buddhist scholars in Europe, and he had already reported upon 
 the Chinese books in the Library of the India Office. 
 
 The importance of the Chinese copy of the Buddhist canonical 
 scriptures lies in the fact that it was commenced in the first cen- 
 tury a.d. The translation was made from the Sanskrit, or from 
 some Indian vernacular, by early Buddhist missionaries from 
 India to China. The Chinese canon derives its authority, as a 
 Kule of Faith, from the successive Emperors who ordered the 
 books to be published and disseminated among the people. 
 
 Like Socrates and other great religious teachers, Buddha 
 taught only by word of mouth. Immediately after his death 
 his disciples assembled in conclave to recall and commit to 
 
 * " The Buddhist Tripitaka as it is known in China and Japan . A 
 Catalogue and Compendious Keport." Printed for the India Office. 
 
4 Buddhism as hnoiun in China. 
 
 memory the words of the master. These "words" were, like 
 the Vedas, handed down from disciple to disciple, until they 
 were finally committed to writing.* They were divided into 
 three parts, or baskets, Tri-pitaka : (1.) Doctrinal and practical 
 discourses ; (2.) Ecclesiastical discipline for the religious orders ; 
 (3.) Metaphysics and philosophy. So long as the words of Buddha 
 were handed down by oral tradition, there was danger of heresies 
 and false teaching; therefore, about the year 246 B.a, King 
 Asoka, who stood to Buddhism in a relation similar to that of 
 the Emperor Constantine to Christianity, summoned a council 
 to fix the canon. This council was to India what the Council 
 of Nice became to Europe. The assembled fathers, who num- 
 bered a thousand, received the excellent advice from the 
 king, that they should seek only for the words of the Master 
 himself, for "that which is spoken by the blessed Buddha, 
 and that alone, is well spoken." None of the Pitakas can 
 be traced back with certainty to an earlier date, although 
 they contain matter which is much older. Many of the 
 monasteries in China contain complete copies of the scriptures 
 in the vernacular, and also of the Sanskrit originals from 
 which the Chinese version was made. Great impetus to the 
 work of translation was given by the influx of Buddhist mis- 
 sionaries on the conversion of the Chinese monarch in the 
 middle of the first century of our era.t Thus, at the very time 
 when Christianity was being carried westward into Europe by 
 St. Paul and his companions, Buddhism was being carried east- 
 ward into China by missionaries no less courageous and zealous 
 for the faith which they believed. 
 
 We propose to carry out the good intentions of the Japanese 
 ambassador by giving an account of the life and teaching of 
 Buddha as it is accepted by the popular Buddhist mind, apart 
 from the metaphysical speculations of the philosophical schools 
 in the scholastic and mystic periods. 
 
 I. The Personality. — In the fifth century B.C. thei'e arose in 
 the civilised world the remarkable intellectual movement of which 
 Pythagoras is the representative in Europe, Zoroaster in Persia, 
 Buddha in India, Confucius in China. Buddha is more fortunate 
 than the others in having bequeathed to the world not only words 
 of wisdom, as did they, but also the example of a life in which 
 the loftiest morality was softened and beautified by unbounded 
 charity and devotion to the good of his fellow-men. His walk 
 through life was along " the path whose entrance is purity, whose 
 
 * Vassilief thinks that writing was not known in India until long after 
 Buddha's death. " Der Buddhismus." 
 + Remusat, " Foe-koue-ki," p. 41 ; Beal, " Fa-Hian," pp. xx.-xxii. 
 
Buddhism as knoivn in China. 5 
 
 goal is love." The personality of the Buddha is still a living 
 power in the world, and by its exquisite beauty it attracts the 
 heart and affection of more than one-third of the human race. 
 
 Buddha is not, strictly speaking, the name of a man. The 
 word means " The Enlightened," and is the title applied to a suc- 
 cession of men whose wisdom has enlightened mankind. It has, 
 however, become identified with the founder of Buddhism, Gau- 
 tama. Buddhists think it irreverent to say the word " Gautama," 
 so they speak of him as the Buddha, Sakya-muni, " the sage of 
 the Sakyas," * " the lion of the tribe of Sakya," " the king of 
 righteousness," "the blessed one." Gautama, then, is the Buddha, f 
 and his followers have been called Buddhists from the charac- 
 teristic feature of the founder's office — he who enlightens man- 
 kind. Gautama claimed to be nothing more than a link in the 
 chain of Buddhas who had preceded and who should follow him.J 
 This modest claim is characteristic of great reformers : Confucius 
 said, " I only hand on, I cannot create new things ; I believe in 
 the ancients." Mohammed claimed to return to the creed of- 
 Abraham, " the Friend." Nevertheless, the glory of a religion 
 belongs to the founder, not to his predecessors nor his successors, 
 he it is who makes all things new: and therefore it is to the life 
 and teaching of Gautama that we must look for the mainspring 
 of the religion. Buddha is one of the few founders of religion 
 who did not claim a special revelation or inspiration : " I have 
 heard these truths from no one," he said ; " they are all self- 
 revealed, they spring only from within myself." He believed 
 them to be true for all time : " The heavens may fall to earth, 
 the earth become dust, the mountains may be removed, but my 
 word cannot fail or be false." 
 
 Buddha commenced his preaching at the city of Benares on 
 the banks of the Ganges, where Brahmanism was the religion of 
 the mass of the people. He was a reformer. His reformation 
 bears to Brahmanism the relation which Protestantism bears to 
 Koman Catholicism, rather than that which Christianity does to 
 Judaism, though it may be doubted whether a schism actually 
 took place during Buddha's lifetime. It was primarily a protest 
 against the sacrificial and sacerdotal system of the Brahmans ; 
 
 * Sakya — the able ones : " These princes are able to found a kingdom 
 and to govern it. Hence the name Sakya" ("Rom. Hist." 23). Muni comes 
 from " man," to think ; hence the thinker, the sage, the monk. Gautama 
 is still the family name of the Rajput chiefs of Nagara, where Buddha was 
 born. 
 
 t The word Buddha is the Sanscrit form of the Greek oiSa, and the 
 Latin video, signifying knowledge or spiritual insight. The German wissen 
 and the English wit, wot, come from the same root. 
 
 | Traditional sayings of former Buddhas are translated in Beal's 
 " Catena," pp. 158, 159. 
 
6 Buddhism as known in China. 
 
 it rejected all bloody sacrifice, together with the priesthood and 
 social caste so essentially bound up with them. The logical 
 consequence of animal sacrifice he admirably showed in the 
 words : " If a man, in worshipping the gods, sacrifices a sheep, 
 and so does well, why should he not kill his child, his relations, 
 or his dearest friend, in worshipping the gods, and so do better ? " 
 But while Buddhism was opposed to sacerdotalism, it was in 
 close alliance with the teaching of the philosophers, for all its 
 main positions may be traced to their origin in the teaching of 
 the philosophical schools of India.* Buddha states and accepts 
 the high aim of these schools : " All the different systems of 
 philosophy are designed to one end — to overthrow the strong- 
 holds of sin." He endeavoured to popularise this end of the 
 philosophy of the day, and to bring it within the comprehension of 
 the poorest and most outcast of the people. Indeed, one secret 
 of his success lay in the fact that he preached to the poor as well 
 as to the rich, and that the common people heard him gladly. 
 
 II. The Birth and Early Manhood. — The birth of Buddha t 
 is veiled in a myth, the outward objective expression of the 
 inner subjective idea, which is the ethical centre of his 
 religion : Unbounded self-sacrifice and tenderest compassion for 
 mankind. The scriptures say that Buddha, having by the 
 Law of Evolution passed through the various stages of exist- 
 ence, at length attained the perfection of being in the highest 
 of the heavens. It was not necessary for him to be again 
 re-born ; he was prepared to pass into the rest and repose of 
 Nirvana. Nevertheless, " he was so moved by the wretched 
 condition of mankind and all sentient creatures, that by the 
 force of his exceeding love " % he took upon him the form of man 
 once more, in order that he might "save the world" by teaching 
 them the way to escape from their wretchedness, and attain that 
 perfection to which he had attained, and enjoy the rest and 
 repose of Nirvana. " I am now," he said, " about to assume a 
 body, to descend and be born among men, to give peace and rest 
 to all flesh, and to remove all sorrows and grief from the 
 world. "% He chose as his earthly mother the wife of the king 
 of Kapilavastu, named Maya, who was henceforth known as the 
 " Holy Mother Maya." He was her first and only son. || In 
 
 * Prof. Monier Williams gives a popular sketch of these philosophical 
 systems in " Indian Wisdom." 
 
 t M. Senart has investigated the story as a solar myth in his " Essai 
 sur la legende du Bouddha, son Charactere et ses Origines." Paris. 1876. 
 
 X "Catena," pp. 15, 130. 
 
 § " Romantic History of Buddha," by S. Beal, p. 33. 
 
 || St. Jerome says : " It is handed down as a tradition among the Gym- 
 nosophists of India, that Buddha, the founder of their system, was 
 brought forth by a virgin from her side." — (Jont. Jovian, i. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 7 
 
 an account of his incarnation contained in a Chinese translation 
 made in the year 194 a.d., this event is literally translated : 
 " The Holy Ghost descended into the womb." * The purity of 
 Maya is described in a very beautiful sutra : 
 
 " As the lotus springs unsullied from the water, 
 So was thy body pure and spotless in the womb. 
 What joy and delight was it to thy mother, 
 Desiring no carnal joys, but rejoicing only in the law, 
 Walking in perfect purity, with no stain of sin," &c, &c. t 
 
 The " Incarnation Scene" is frequently met with in the Bud- 
 dhist sculptures at Sanchi and Amravati, which are about 
 the date of the Christian era. Around this myth there have 
 gathered a string of legends which bear a striking resemblance, 
 and a no less striking difference, both to the Gospel history and 
 the apocryphal Gospels. On the day of the child's birth the 
 heavens shone with divine light, and the earth shook withal, 
 while angelic hosts sang, '' To-day Buddha is born on earth, to 
 give joy and peace, to give light to those in darkness, and sight to 
 the eyes of the blind." The light shone because Buddha should 
 hereafter enlighten the darkness of men's minds, the earth shook 
 withal because he should shake the powers of evil which afflict the 
 world. An aged hermit of the Himalayas is divinely guided to 
 the spot where the young child lay in the arms of M&y&, his 
 mother, and placing his venerable head under the tiny feet of the 
 infant,! spoke of him as the " Deliverer from sin, and sorrow, and 
 death." Weeping, he repeated the following canticle : 
 
 " Alas, I am old and stricken in years ; 
 The time of my departure is at hand ; 
 I rejoice and yet I am sad. 
 
 The misery and the wretchedness of man shall disappear, 
 And at his bidding peace and joy shall everywhere flourish." 
 
 And he added: "Alas! while others shall find deliverance for 
 their sins, and arrive at perfect wisdom through the preaching 
 of this child, I shall not be found among them," The princes 
 of the tribe of Sakya brought rare and costly gifts and presented 
 
 * " Catalogue of Buddhist Tripitaka," in the India Office, 1876, pp. 115, 
 116. 
 
 t " Romantic History of Buddha," p. 275, a Chinese translation from the 
 Sanskrit, made in the year 69 or 70 a.d. " We may therefore safely sup- 
 pose," says Mr. Beal, " that the original work was in circulation in India for 
 some time previous to that date." — Intr, vi. 
 
 J In Spier's "Ancient India" there is a drawing from the Cave of 
 Ajanta, which represents the old man with the infant Buddha in his arms 
 (p. 248). 
 
8 Bvddhism as known in China. 
 
 them to the child ; but the brightness of his person outshone 
 the lustre of the jewels, and a voice from heaven proclaimed : 
 
 " In comparison with the fulness of true religion 
 The brightness of gems is as nothing." 
 
 The neighbouring king of Maghadha is advised to send an army 
 to destroy the child who is to become a universal monarch ; 
 but he answers, " Not so, if the child become a holy man and 
 wield a righteous sceptre, then it is fitting for me to reverence 
 and obey him, and we shall enjoy peace and safety under his 
 rule. If he become a Buddha, and his love and compassion 
 leads him to save and deliver all flesh, then we ought to listen 
 to his teaching, and become his disciples." He astonished his 
 teachers when he entered the schools of. letters and of arms : 
 they said, " Surely this is the instructor of gods and men, who 
 condescends to seek for a master ! " He simply said, " It is 
 well ; I am self-taught." * This is the only record of his youth 
 until his twenty-ninth year, when he was converted. 
 
 It is difficult to assign any definite date to those legends. 
 "All evidence tends to prove that they are earlier than the 
 Christian era." f There is little doubt, however, that they arose 
 after the death of Buddha ; who would certainly have rejected all 
 such appeals to the miraculous. Buddha never refers to them, 
 and when some enthusiasts sought a sign from him to convince 
 the people, he answered, "The miracle my disciples should 
 show is to hide their good deeds and confess their faults." J 
 The chief are sculptured on the rails of the tope at Sanchi, which 
 is a sort of Buddhist picture-Bible carved in stone.§ 
 
 These legends are of comparatively small value, for they 
 add nothing to the glory of the man's life, which, after his 
 " conversion," became a life of the loftiest moral perfection and 
 the noblest self-devotion to the good of others. Born the son of 
 a king, he was brought up in all the luxury of an Oriental court. 
 From this epicurean life he was converted hy three sights — 
 an old man tottering under the weight of his years, a young 
 man tossing in the raging heat of fever, and a corpse lying 
 exposed by the roadside. These sights made him reflect- that 
 
 * Cf. Apoo. Epistle of Thomas vi. Pseudo-Matthew x-xx. xxxi. The 
 same legend reappears in the biography of Nanak, founder of the Sikh 
 religion (1469 a.d.), "The Adi Granth," p. 602, printed for India Office, 
 1877. ' 
 
 t Beal's " Rom. Hist." ix. 
 
 J So Mohammed's reply : " My Lord be praised ! am I more than a 
 man sent as an apostle «... Angels do not commonly walk the earth, 
 or God would have sent an angel to preach His truth to you." 
 
 § Pergusson's " Tree and Serpent Worship," p. 182. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 9 
 
 though he were now young and vigorous, yet he, too, was liable 
 to the sorrows of old age, disease, and death. 
 
 While he pondered in his heart over these things, he saw a 
 holy mendicant with the placid expression of a disciplined 
 spirit who had renounced all pleasures and had attained to per- 
 fect calm. He asked who the holy man might be, and was 
 told: "Great Prince! this man constantly practises virtue 
 and flees vice ; he gives himself to charity, and restrains his 
 appetites and desires ; he is at peace with all men ; and, so far as 
 he can, he does good to all, and is full of sympathy for all." 
 
 These sights depressed his spirits, and he sought for means to 
 escape from such sorrows, if, indeed, they were not irrevocably 
 fixed upon all men alike. Herodotus mentions a Thracian 
 tribe who mourned when a child was born and rejoiced 
 when any one died. The same sad aspect of life op- 
 pressed the mind of the young prince. His sadness was no 
 selfish desire of escape from his own troubles ; it arose from 
 intense sympathy with the sorrows of others. As he walked 
 about the palace, men heard him repeat : " Nothing on earth is 
 stable, nothing is real. Life is passing as a spark of fire or the 
 sound of a lute. There must be a Supreme Intelligence wherein 
 we can rest. If I attained it, I could then bring light to men. 
 If I were free myself, I could deliver the world." 
 
 This thought of the salvation of mankind and the deliverance 
 of the world became the dominant aim of his life. On the 
 birth of his first-born son, the people flocked joyfully to the 
 palace gates ; but the sight almost moved him to tears : " All 
 these people are without the means of salvation, without any hope 
 of deliverance, constantly tossed on the sea of life and death, old 
 age and disease ; with no fear or care about their unhappy con- 
 dition, with no one to guide or instruct them ; ever wandering 
 in the dark, and unable to escape. Thinking thus, his heart was 
 moved with love, and he felt himself strengthened in his resolution 
 to provide some sure ground for the salvation of the world." 
 In the night watches he hears a voice calling him : " A man 
 whose own body is bound with fetters, and who yet desires to 
 release others from their bonds, is like a blind man who under- 
 takes to lead the blind." In the daytime the songs of the 
 singing-girls seemed to say : " Quit the world, prepare thy heart 
 for supreme wisdom ; . . thy time is come, it behoveth thee 
 to leave house and home." He again hears the divine voice — 
 
 " Whatever miseries of life or death are in the world, 
 The Great Physician is able to cure all." 
 
 It is in vain that his father tries to dissuade him ; he replies, 
 " Tour majesty cannot prevail against my resolve ; for what is it ? 
 Shall a man attempt to prevent another escaping from a burning 
 
 A 2 
 
10 Buddhism as Jcnoivn in China. 
 
 house ? " At length his resolution is taken : " I will go ; the 
 time is come to seek the highest law of life." * 
 
 Very touching is the account of the temptations of the young 
 prince. When his child was bora he said, " This is a new tie, 
 yet it must be broken." At midnight he seeks the chamber 
 where lay his wife ; he pauses in the doorway — their first-born 
 lay upon her breast. He fears to take the infant in his arms 
 lest he should wake the mother. He tears himself away, vowing 
 that he will. return not as husband and father, but as teacher 
 and saviour. He rides forth to the city gate. Here Mara, the 
 evil one, meets him, and now by threats, now by the offer of the 
 " kingdoms of the world " for his empire, seeks to turn him 
 from his resolution ; he answers, " A thousand honours such as 
 those you offer have no charm for me to-day. I seek enlighten- 
 ment. Therefore begone, hinder me not." 
 
 Biding far enough from the city to baffle pursuit, he turns to 
 take one farewell look ; he then dismounts, strips himself of his 
 princely robe, and putting on a mendicant's dress, takes an alms- 
 bowl f to beg his daily bread, and determines henceforth to be 
 known by no other name than the Eecluse of the Sakyas, Sakya- 
 muni. 
 
 Many were the temptations which now beset him ; for " as a 
 shadow follows the body, so did Mara follow the Blessed One, 
 striving to throw every obstacle in his way towards the Buddha- 
 hood." The nausea of the mendicant's food, the recollections of 
 the affection, the home, the kingdom he had renounced, tried 
 him sorely. His father sent to entreat him to return to him, 
 
 * The " fulness of the time " was marked by the conjunction of a certain 
 star with the moon. 
 
 t The legend of Buddha's alms-bowl migrated to Europe as the legend of 
 the Sane Greal. " Fa-hian," pp. 162-164. " Memoires sur les Contrees Occi- 
 dentales," par Hiouen-Thsang, en a.d. 648. Stanislas Julien, i. 81. Fa-hian 
 was told that when men became very bad, the alms-bowl should disappear, 
 and then the law of Buddha would gradually perish. Hiouen-Thsang caught 
 a glimpse of it in a cave : " Suddenly there appeared on the east wall a halo 
 of light, large as an alms-bowl, but it vanished instantly. Again it appeared 
 and vanished." The alms-bowl can only be recovered by a man who is 
 perfectly pure, then the earth shall recover from its loss and degeneracy. 
 " Catalogue," p. 115. These characteristics of the legend are unconsciously 
 preserved by Mr. Tennyson in his " Legend of the Holy Grail " : — 
 
 "What is it? 
 The phantom of a cup that comes and goes. 
 
 If a man 
 
 Could touch or see it, he was healed at once 
 By faith of all his ills. But then the times 
 Grew to such evil, that the holy cup 
 "Was caught away to heaven and disappeared." 
 It is the " maiden knight " Sir Galahad who finds the Holy GraiL 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 11 
 
 to his wife, and child; he answered, "I know my father's great 
 love for me, but then I tremble to think of the miseries of old 
 age, disease, and death, which shall soon destroy this body. I 
 desire above all things to find a way of deliverance from these 
 evils ; and therefore I have left my home and kinsfolk to seek 
 after the complete possession of supreme wisdom. A wise man 
 regards his friends as fellow-travellers, each one going along the 
 same road, yet soon to be separated as each goes to his own 
 place. If you speak of a fit time and an unfit time to become 
 a recluse, my answer is, that Death knows nothing of one time or 
 another, but is busy gathering his victims at all times. I wish 
 to escape from old age, disease, and death, and have no leisure 
 to consider whether this be the right time or not." The beauty 
 of his person and the wisdom of his mind induced a neighbouring 
 king to offer him a share in his kingdom ; " I seek not an earthly 
 kingdom," he replied; "I seek to become enlightened." 
 
 To attain this enlightenment, he first studied under the Brah- 
 mans, but he soon found that they and the Vedas could not help 
 him. He next joined five hermits in the jungle, and under- 
 went such austerities that, while his body became "worn and 
 haggard," his fame as an ascetic " spread abroad like the sound 
 of a great bell hung in the canopy of the sky." But after six 
 years' trial, he found that the road to enlightenment did not lie 
 through asceticism. Therefore he abandoned it, and annunci- 
 ated one of the fundamental truths of his system : " Moderation 
 in all things." He had tried the two extremes of luxury and 
 asceticism ; true enlightenment was not to be found in either. 
 Then he learned that, " like as the man who would discourse sweet 
 music must tune the strings of his instrument to the medium 
 point of tension, so he who would arrive at the condition of 
 Buddha must exercise himself in the medium course of dis- 
 cipline." * 
 
 Once- more he went begging through the villages. At length 
 the day of enlightenment came, as he was seated one evening 
 under a tree, which for many centuries > afterwards became the 
 most interesting object of the pilgrim's pilgrimage.f The 
 temptation which preceded that supreme moment is most touch- 
 ing. A peasant woman led her little child by the hand to offer 
 food to the holy man. The sight carried back his thoughts to 
 
 * So the Hebrew Preacher : " Be not wise overmuch ; be not foolish 
 overmuch ; be not righteous overmuch ; be not wicked overmuch " 
 (Eccles. vii. 16, 17). 
 
 f Asoka's daughter brought to Ceylon in 245 B.C. a branch of this tree 
 (Ficus'religiosa). The branch grew, and is now " the oldest historical tree 
 in the world." ' Its history is preserved in a series of continuous chronicles, 
 which are brought together by Sir Emerson Tennent, " Ceylon," vol. ii. 
 pp. 613 sq. Fergusson, " Tree and Serpent Worship," p. 56. 
 
12 Buddhism as known in China. 
 
 the borne he had left. The love of wife and child, the wealth 
 and power of place, came upon him with a force overwhelmingly- 
 attractive. It was a sore temptation.* But as the sun set, 
 the religious side of his nature won the victory ; he came 
 forth purified in the struggle ; he abandoned all — wife, 
 child, home, princely power — in order to win deliverance for 
 mankind : " I vow from this moment to deliver the world 
 from the thraldom of death and of the evil one. I will 
 procure the salvation of all men, and lead them across to the 
 other shore." The supernatural side of this struggle is de- 
 scribed with all the wealth of Oriental imagery. Marat with his 
 daughters and angels alternately rage against and caress him ; 
 all nature is convulsed at the conflict " between the Saviour of 
 the world and the Prince of evil ; " the earth shakes as she only 
 does when a man's virtue reaches perfection or is utterly lost. 
 The Buddhist description bears a striking resemblance to the 
 passage in "Paradise Regained" in which the "patient Son 
 of God " was tempted in the wilderness, and sat " uuappalled in 
 calm and sinless peace." Buddha sat " unmoved from his 
 fixed purpose, firm as Mount Sumeru," until Mara, having 
 exhausted all his powers, fell at his feet in terror ; and the cry 
 went through the worlds of heaven and hell, "Mara is overcome, 
 the Prince is conqueror." Then Buddha's mind was enlightened, 
 and he saw the way of salvation for all living creatures. 
 
 " From out the darkness and gloomy night of the world, 
 The gross darkness and iguorance that envelop mankind, 
 This Holy One, having attained the perfection of wisdom, 
 Shall cause to appear the brightness and glory of his own light." 
 
 The tree beneath which Buddha attained enlightenment and 
 the Buddhaship has become to his followers a symbol as expres- 
 sive of their faith as is the cross to the Christian. The victory 
 won beneath that tree has brightened, and to this day brightens, 
 the lives of more men and women than does any other victory in 
 the history of the world ; for out of the thousand million inhabi- 
 tants which it is computed people this earth, 450,000,000 are 
 Buddhists. On that day heaven and earth sang together for 
 joy, flowers fell around the Holy One ; " there ceased to be 
 ill-feeling or hatred in the hearts of men ; all wants of food 
 and drink and clothing were supplied; the blind saw, the deaf 
 
 * The temptation scene is figured on the middlebeam of the northern 
 gateway at Sanchi. Frontispiece to " Tree and Serpent Worship." 
 
 t " Mara est le demon de l'amour, du peche, et de la mort ; c'est le ten- 
 tateur et l'ennemi du Buddha." — Burnouf, Introd. 76. Mara as the 
 night-mare, still torments English people. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 13 
 
 heard, the dumb spake ; the prisoners in the lower worlds were 
 released ; and all living creatures found rest and peace."* 
 
 III. The Enlightenment. — What was the enlightenment which 
 made the young prince the Enlightened One, the Buddha, who 
 should enlighten the world ? It was The Way by which men 
 could escape from the sorrows of old age, disease, and death. 
 The Way was contained in the Four Sublime -Truths, or Noble 
 Truths, proclaimed in his first sermon, the Sutra of " The Foun- 
 dation of Kighteousness." These truths are — (1) Sorrow 
 exists ; (2) Sorrow increases and accumulates through desires 
 and cravings after objects of sense ; (3) Sorrow • may be de- 
 stroyed by entering on the " Four Paths ; " (4) The Four Paths 
 are perfect faith, perfect thought, perfect speech, perfect deed.f 
 These paths lead to the rest and repose of Nirvana. 
 
 Thus Buddha taught that it is through perfection of life that 
 men attain enlightenment and knowledge. "Not study," he said, 
 " not asceticism, but the purification of the mind from all unholy 
 desires and passions/' — a position we may place side by side 
 with the words of Christ : " If any man willeth to do God's 
 will, he shall know the doctrine." . The perfection of goodness, 
 bringing with it the perfection of wisdom, Buddha taught as the 
 end and aim of our existence. When man has attained this 
 perfection, his soul is freed from all slavery to the objects of 
 sense, and as there is therefore no longer any need for him to be 
 reborn, he passes into the rest and repose of Nirvana, which is 
 the perfection of being. 
 
 This religion of perfection Buddha based upon the corner- 
 stones of self- conquest and self-sacrifice. Self -conquest is 
 developed by the observance of the Five Commandments : 
 " Thou shalt do no murder : Thou shalt not commit adultery : 
 Thou shalt not steal: Thou shalt not lie: J Thou shalt 
 not become intoxicated." The man who keeps these com- 
 mandments orders his conduct aright, and "remains like 
 the broad earth, unvexed ; like the pillar of the city gate, 
 unmoved; like the tranquil lake, unruffled." § Self-sacrifice 
 is to be shown by an unbounded charity, and a devotion 
 i 
 
 * " Rom. Hist." p. 225. 
 
 t Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion (1469-1538 a.d.), taught that 
 Nirvana was to be reached by the four paths of — (1) Extinction of 'indi- 
 viduality, (2) Disregard of ceremonies, (3) Conversion of foes into friends, 
 (4) The knowledge of good. " The Adi Granth, or the Holy Scriptures of 
 the Sikhs," by Trumpp ; Trubner, 1877. 
 
 t The absolute necessity of truthfulness is constantly enforced. Buddha 
 once said to Mara, " O Ma"ra ! I am born a Kshatriya, and therefore I 
 scorn to lie." This oath of the Kshatriya is the origin of " the word of 
 honour" in chivalry. " Eom. Hist." 222 n. 
 
 § "Texts from the Buddhist canon,. the Dhammapada." By S. Beal. 
 Trubner. 1878. 
 
14 Buddhism as knoicn in China. 
 
 to the good of others which rises to an enthusiasm for 
 humanity. 
 
 The motive for this self-conquest and self-sacrifice was, that 
 by their development to perfection of character they would 
 enable men to escape from the sorrows and miseries of life. 
 This motive appealed to the common sense of mankind, for 
 Buddha taught that every thought, word, and deed bear their 
 own consequences. Goodness is rewarded, badness is punished, 
 in the way of natural consequence ; and these consequences 
 continue through countless births and re-births on earth, in 
 heaven, in hell. We are now reaping, in this present stage of 
 our existence, the natural harvest of the seeds of good or evil 
 sown by us in previous stages ; we shall in the future reap the 
 harvest of the sowing in the present. Whatever a man hath 
 sown he is now reaping ; whatever a man is now sowing, that 
 shall he also hereafter reap. We are that which we have made 
 ourselves in the past ; we shall be that which we are now making 
 ourselves. A man is born blind because in a previous stage of 
 existence he indulged in the lust of the eye ; a man has quick 
 hearing, because in a previous stage he loved to listen to the 
 leading of the law. Each new birth is conditioned by the 
 Karma — the aggregation of the merit and the demerit of pre- 
 vious births — the conduct of life. 
 
 A man once asked the Master, '' From some cause or other 
 mankind receive existence ; but there are some persons who are 
 exalted, others who are mean ; some who die young, others who 
 live to a great age ; some who suffer from various diseases, some 
 who have no sickness until they die ; some who are of the lowest 
 caste, some who are of the highest ; — what is the cause of these 
 differences ? " _ To this Buddha replied : " All sentient beings 
 have their own individual Karma. . Karma comes by inheri- 
 tance from previous births. Karma is the cause of all good and 
 evil. It is the difference in the Karma which causes the 
 difference in the lot of men, so that some men are low and 
 some exalted, some are miserable and some happy. A good 
 action well done, a bad action wickedly done, when they reach 
 maturity, equally bear inevitable fruit." * The Master himself 
 ■had obtained the Buddhaship by the same law, "by the meri- 
 torious Karma of previous births." Step by step had he won 
 his way ; born as a bird, as a stag, as an elephant, through 
 each successive stage of human rank and condition by continued 
 
 * Hardy's " Manual of Buddhism," pp. 445,' 446. The Jews believed in 
 the pre-existence of souls (St. John ix. 2). Alger's " Critical History of 
 a Future Life," New York, 1867, for the history of the subject. There 
 is an interesting passage on pre-existence in Lessing's " Die Erziehung des 
 Menschengeschlechts," which is pure Buddhism. 
 
Buddhism as hnown in China. 15 
 
 births had he at last reached the highest elevation of purity and 
 self-sacrifice ; and now he has come into the world the Saviour 
 of mankind, to teach them the way by which they might all 
 attain to the same perfection. 
 
 Of the first origin of things, of the first birth, Buddha knew 
 nothing. "When he was asked whether the existence of the 
 world is eternal or non-eternal, he made no reply," because he 
 considered such inquiries of no profit.. He starts from the 
 material world and the conscious beings in it. Here he finds 
 all things changing by the law of cause and effect ; nothing con- 
 tinues in one stage. Then this reflection came into his mind : 
 Birth exists, and is the cause of decay, disease, and death. 
 Therefore, destroy birth, and the effects of birth are destroyed 
 likewise ; and this world, which is but a mass of sorrows culmi- 
 nating in decay and death, will be annihilated. 
 
 As of the beginning of existence, so of the end of existence 
 Buddha knows nothing. He traces the progress of the human 
 being as it develops towards perfection through a series of ever- 
 ascending heavens, until the last and final heaven is attained. 
 Gradually, by a series of steps, has all imperfection been puri- 
 fied, and man has become perfect, so far as the mind of man 
 can conceive of perfection. And when made perfect, there is no 
 further need for it to be re-born, because no more births could 
 make it more humanly perfect than it is. Therefore it passes 
 into the rest and repose of Nirvana, that transcendental stage 
 of being which overpasses the horizon of man's conception. 
 What the precise nature of that state may be Buddha knows not 
 — it is Nirvana. It is described as " the eternal place of bliss, 
 where there is no more sorrow, no more disease, nor old age, nor 
 death," as the " home of peace," " the other shore of the ocean of 
 existence," the "shore of salvation," the " harbour of refuge," the 
 " medicine of all evils." The rest and repose of Nirvana may be 
 obtained on earth by the man who attains the ideal holiness. In- 
 deed, Mr. Rhys Davids proposes to translate Nirvana by the word 
 " holiness — holiness, that is, in the Buddhist sense, perfect 
 peace, goodness, and wisdom." t Some people, not in har- 
 mony with the mind of Buddha, have spoken of Nirvana as 
 though it meant annihilation. But there is no thought of anni- 
 hilation in the mind of the Founder who said, "I. devote myself 
 wholly to moral culture, so as to arrive at the highest condition 
 of moral rest, Nirvana." J There can be no thought of the loss 
 of personal being in the place whose four characteristics are — 
 " Personality, Purity, Happiness, Eternity." § 
 
 * " Buddhism," p. 112 ; Childers' Pali Diet., " Nibbanam.'' 
 t " Catena," p. 183. $ "Letter to Dr. Kost," p. i. 
 
16 Buddhism as known in China. 
 
 Indeed, the controversy between the Confucians and the Bud- 
 hists in China turns upon the belief in a future life as a motive 
 for virtue, as may be seen from the biographical section of the 
 history of the Sung dynasty: "The instructions of Confucius 
 include only a single life ; they do not reach to the future state, 
 with its illimitable results. His only motive to virtue is the 
 happiness of posterity. The only consequence of vice he names 
 is present suffering. The reward of the good does not go beyond 
 worldly honours. The aims of Buddha, on the other hand, are 
 illimitable. His religion removes care from the heart, and saves 
 men from all danger. Its one sentiment is mercy seeking to 
 save. It speaks of hell to deter from sin ; it points to heaven 
 that men may desire its happiness. It exhibits the Nirvana as 
 the spirit's final refuge, and tells us of a body (dharmakaya) to 
 be possessed under other conditions, long after the present body 
 has passed away." * 
 
 Thus Buddha taught that the aim of life is perfection, and 
 that rest and repose can only be found in the perfection of the 
 moral and spiritual being. How closely this coincides with the 
 teaching of Christ on this point five hundred years later, will appear 
 from the words, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in 
 heaven is perfect," — reXeioi, complete, all-embracing, godlike in 
 your charity and love to others, like the Father, who sendeth His 
 rain, and maketh His sun to shine both on the evil and the good. 
 Again, " He that is perfect shall be as his master," — Karr)pTi,<r- 
 (j-evos, fully instructed, well conditioned, knowing his duty and 
 doing it.f So also St. Paul urges men to arrive at the " perfect 
 man" (ek avBpa reXeiov), ''to the measure of the stature of 
 Christ's fulness." 
 
 It is quite true that Buddha did not give as the .standard of 
 ideal perfection " our Father in the heavens," that most touching 
 name by which the early Aryan clan spoke of Cod. and which 
 reappears in the language of their European descendants. 
 Buddha, as a rationalist, knew nothing of a personal God, but 
 only of His manifestation in the law of Karma.. 
 
 There are some who have described Buddhism as atheistic, 
 but the mind which refuses to predicate attributes of God 
 which it cannot prove is different from the mind which boldly 
 asserts " There is no God." It may be difficult to prove the 
 
 * " Travels of Fa-hian," introd. p. xxvi. " If we look in the Dhammapada," 
 says Prof. Max Miiller, " at every passage where Nirvana is mentioned, 
 there is not one that would require that its meaning should be annihila- 
 tion ; while most, if not all, Would become perfectly unintelligible if we 
 assigned to the word Nirvana that meaning." — Buddliaghosha, p. 41. 
 
 t The Buddhistic spirit of this passage was pointed out to me by the 
 veteran scholar, Mr. Bryant Hodgson. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 17 
 
 existence of a personal God ; it is not less difficult to prove His 
 non-existence. Buddha neither asserted nor denied. Buddha 
 is accused of atheism because he rejected Indra, Brahma, and 
 the whole material pantheon ; but the accusation comes with a 
 bad grace from those who must know that the early Christians 
 were called aOeoo, because they refused to believe in Jupiter and 
 the other divinities of Greece and Borne. Buddha had a very 
 high conception of deity ; but so far did he push the refinement 
 of deity or the divine existence, that he not only eliminated from 
 it all human conditions and relationships, but he thought that it 
 must embrace all existence. In other words, nothing really 
 exists but it, and phenomenal existence is really phenomenal. 
 Therefore, the leading idea of his religion, when regarded as a 
 rule of faith for shaping our lives and raising them to the ideal 
 of the divine, is that we must not only get rid of all the imper- 
 fections included in the idea of ill-conduct, but also the limita- 
 tions included in the idea of individual existence. This is not 
 pantheism, but, if anything, transcendentalism — a conception of 
 deity which transcends human thought. 
 
 The idea of a perfect life on earth Buddha taught not merely 
 by word of mouth, but also by the moral purity and the lofty 
 purpose of his character, and by his devotion to the good of his 
 fellow-men. Every Buddhist believes that it was Buddha's 
 "exceeding great love" which moved him with compassion for 
 suffering humanity, and brought him back from heaven to earth 
 to teach mankind the way of salvation. His enemies blamed his 
 disciples for applauding his saying, "Let all the sins that have 
 been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may be 
 delivered." * This spirit of self-sacrifice we constantly find in 
 his disciples. For instance, King Bantiveda, who endured 
 hunger and thirst that he might relieve others, says, "I desire 
 not from the Lord that highest destiny which is accomplished in 
 the eight perfections, neither do I ask to be exempted from future 
 births. I seek to live within all corporeal beings, and endure 
 their pains, so that they may be freed from suffering." t The 
 traditions show this self-sacrifice pushed to the point of extrava- 
 gance, in stories of Buddha having, in previous stages of exist- 
 ence, given his body to a famished tigress to enable her to succour 
 her young. "As a mother," he said, "even at the risk of her^ 
 own life, protects her son, her only son, so let there be good-will 
 without measure among all beings. Let unmeasured good-will 
 — unhindered love and friendliness — prevail in the whole world, 
 above, below, around. If a man remain in this state of mind at 
 
 * Max Miiller, " Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 80. A similar noble 
 sentimentwas expressed by Moses (Ex. xxxii. 32), and by St. Paul (Kom. 
 ix. 3). " t " Bhagavata Purana," ix. 21. 
 
18 Buddhism as known in China. 
 
 all times, then is brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 ' Even in this world has holiness been found.' " One of the 
 highest acts of charity is to pray to a Buddha " from a desire to 
 save all living creatures." " Our object should be by personal 
 profit to profit others." " It is because men seek their own 
 profit that sorrows come upon them." " Love is the greatest of 
 all things, and frees the man whose heart is full of it from all 
 bonds of ignorance and sin." * " When a man abstains from 
 evil, and experiences in his heart a feeling of universal charity 
 and love, and desires to arrive at perfection in order that he may 
 benefit others, and from no selfish desire, then, like dry wood; the 
 fire may be easily kindled." Indeed, Buddha is described as "that 
 great man who, unaided, works out salvation for the world." ■f 
 
 IV. The Teacher. — Buddha, having attained this enlighten- 
 ment, shrank at first from the task of proclaiming it to the world. 
 Men, weighed down by sorrow, oppressed by false teaching, would 
 not be able to understand this law of enlightenment ; had he not 
 better remain a solitary hermit ? As he thought thus, the divine 
 voice of his better nature spoke, " Oh, do not act thus ; be not 
 silent, but, for the sake of man sunk in sin, declare thy law ! Let 
 thy love constrain thee to do so, let thy compassionate heart move 
 thee to declare thy law ; for though the world be wicked, yet are 
 there many prepared to receive this message of love and to be 
 converted, many who would otherwise perish. Let the World- 
 honoured One, therefore, resolve to preach the law for the good 
 of others." Then by the power of his wisdom he beheld the 
 various conditions of men, in ignorance and in knowledge, like the 
 lotus flowers in a tank, some emerging from the mud but not yet 
 above the water, others above the water but not yet expanded, 
 others just opening, waiting for his word to complete their, 
 development. Then his resolution was formed, and he Said, 
 " I am willing now to open the gate of immortality. If any will 
 listen, let them come gladly ; let them hearken as I declare the 
 tidings of this law." 
 
 The first persons to whom he preached the kingdom of right- 
 eousness, or " turned the wheel of the law," were the five hermits 
 who had been with him in the time of his penance, and who now 
 dwelt in the Deer Park near Benares. Afterwards he went to 
 preach in the city. An acquaintance met him on the road, and 
 inquired whither he was going. " I am going to Benares," he 
 answered, " to establish a kingdom of righteousness,! by giving 
 
 * Cf. the Hebrew proverb, "Love covereth all sin" (x. 12), quoted in 
 1 Peter iv. 8. 
 
 t Burnouf, " Lotus de la Bonne Loi," p. 332. 
 
 X This is the. translation proposed by Mr. Rhys Davids for the usual Bud- 
 hdist phrase, " to turn the wheel of the law." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
Buddhism as knoivn in China. 19 
 
 light to those who are shrouded in darkness, and by opening to 
 all men the gate of immortality." At Kapilavastu, he offered 
 salvation to his father : " My father, when a man has found a 
 treasure, it is his duty to offer the most precious of his jewels to 
 his father first. Do not delay ; let me share with you the trea- 
 sure I have found." His wife had fasted and wept during his 
 absence ; he went to her, for he said, " She is exceeding sorrow- 
 ful. Unless her sorrow be allowed to take its course, her heart 
 will break. She may embrace me. Do not stop her." But 
 when she saw him enter, no longer the husband she remembered, 
 but a recluse with shaven head and face, and in the yellow * robe, 
 she fell at his feet, and held them, watering them with her tears. 
 Then, feeling how great was the distance between them, she rose 
 and stood on one side. So they parted either from other, and in 
 after years she became a Buddhist nun. His son came and asked 
 for his inheritance. " The boy asks for an earthly inheritance 
 which availeth nothing. I will give him a spiritual inheritance 
 which fadeth not away. Let him be admitted among us." 
 
 Buddha preached to all men alike, but it was to the poor that 
 his teaching came home with peculiar force ; for he broke down 
 the caste which degraded society; he taught 'them the way to 
 escape from the sorrows of their daily life, and he held out to 
 them a brighter future, dependent upon their goodness and their 
 charity. He showed his love and compassion for them by be- 
 coming a poor man himself, although born son of a king. The 
 people were astonished: "Our young prince is gone mad!"t 
 The priests were indignant that one not of their order should 
 teach the people ; they were still more indignant when they heard 
 him announce that no one was of a caste too low and despised 
 but that he could attain to the moral perfection and the 
 enlightenment of Buddha himself. Ananda, his favourite dis- 
 ciple, meets a poor Chandala woman beside a well of water, and 
 asks her for a drink. She tells him she is a Chandala,J an out- 
 cast ; but he replied, " My sister, I ask not after thy caste and 
 thy family, I only ask for a draught of water." She became a 
 disciple. " Not by birth," said Buddha, " does one become a 
 slave (vasala), not by birth does one become a Brahman ; one 
 becomes a slave by bad conduct, as one by good conduct be- 
 
 * This colour was first chosen as one of contempt, being the colour of 
 old cast-off rags of white cotton cloth ; it soon became the sign of the 
 highest honour (Dhap. 9). , 
 
 t Klaproth, Journ. As., vii. 181, qd. by L6on Feer, " Etudes Boudd- 
 hiques," p. 24. Paris. 1870. 
 
 | The Chandalas were the outcasts of Indian society ; they had no caste 
 When they entered a town or market-place, they struck a piece of wood 
 to keep themselves separate. People hearing their sound, avoided touch- 
 ing or brushing against them. , 
 
20 Buddhism, as known in China. 
 
 comes a Brahman." " Not by plaited hair or family shall one 
 become a Brahman ; for what avail- thy plaited hair and gar- 
 ment of skins when within thee there is impurity, and the out- 
 side only thou makest clean. He who walks truthfully and 
 righteously, he is the true Brahman." * 
 
 No one was too unlearned. When Patisena, who could only 
 learn one gatha, attained supreme wisdom, men exclaimed, " How 
 hath this man this wisdom ? " Buddha replied, " Learning need 
 not be much ; conduct is the chief thing. Patisena has allowed 
 the words of the gatha to penetrate his spirit. ... To explain 
 one sentence of the law, and to walk according to it, this is the 
 way to find supreme wisdom." t 
 
 No one was too poor to win Buddha's praise. He tells the 
 story of a poor old woman who wished to offer him a gift. She 
 had only two small coins (mites), so she spent them in buying a 
 little oil, which she took to a sacred place, and burned it in a 
 lamp to his honour. The lights of all the rich folk were ex- 
 tinguished, but hers burned on continually.^ Poor people were 
 able with a few flowers to fill his alms-bowl, although there were 
 rich men who could not fill it with many baskets, of flowers.§ 
 
 During a famine a certain Pratyeka Buddha got up early one 
 morning, and putting on his robe, took his alms-dish in his hand, 
 and entered the city of Benares, where he begged from door to 
 door. He obtained nothing, so he went home again, washed his 
 alms-bowl, and sat down. Now there was in Benares a certain 
 poor man who had watched the holy man, and seen that he re- 
 ceived nothing ; so he went to him, and invited him to his house 
 to share all that he had, which was just one measure of coarse 
 cockle-seed. A servant girl, whose mistress had refused to re- 
 lieve a dirty old man, ugly and graceless, begged her daily por- 
 tion of meal, and gave it in charity to the man ; " for," said she, 
 • " in holy men one does not look for comeliness of person, but for 
 purity of heart." 
 
 But not only did Buddha preach to the poor and the low-caste, 
 he preached to the rich arid the high-caste also, and gathered 
 disciples from all ranks of society. For all he laid down as the 
 characteristic of the " true disciple, the disciple indeed" — " He 
 ministers to the worthy, does harm to none, gives honour to whom 
 honour is due, loves righteousness and righteous conversation, 
 rejoices in meditating on the law, reflects in his life the divine 
 wisdom, practises self-discipline in order to lead a pure and 
 chaste life, always does good to those around him." For one 
 
 * Dhap. " Young philosophers assume a cloak and grow a beard, and 
 say, ' I am a philosopher.' " — Epictetus, iv. 8. Of. 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4. 
 t Dhap. xvi. , % Beal's Letter to Rost, p. 7. 
 
 § " Travels of Fa-Hian," p. 38. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 21 
 
 class, inde'ed, he made special provision — the hermits. Brahman- 
 ism had developed by its teaching men who retired from the 
 world under vows of chastity and poverty. Buddha had himself 
 tried their system, and it had failed to give rest and repose to 
 his spiritual being. He now offered to those ascetics the way by 
 which they might escape from the sorrows of life and find spiri- 
 tual rest. The way of salvation was the same for all men, but 
 for those who desired to live a higher life he provided special 
 "counsels of perfection." Hence there sprang the elaborate con- 
 ventual system which so keenly exercised the speculation of the 
 early Jesuit missionaries, and which is so powerful to this day 
 in Buddhist countries. The monastic order was bound by vows 
 of celibacy and poverty ; but those vows did not bring in them- 
 selves merit, they were only to be regarded as a help to the men 
 and women who bound themselves by them. All men and 
 women were admitted without distinction of caste, and no one 
 who was under age was received without the consent of their 
 parents. They were not priests, for they neither offered sacrifice 
 nor prayers. Originally they lived under trees, but they soon 
 assembled in religious houses — the men in monasteries, the women 
 in convents. Their time was spent in meditation, which is the 
 effort of the " true self" to obtain freedom from the trammels of 
 sense. " Cleansed from all personal defilement, the caiididate," 
 says Buddha, " comes out of the world, and is truly a homeless 
 one — a disciple indeed." Henceforth he must give himself up to 
 work and chastity, for " the man who has left home to become 
 a Shaman, and yet gives way to idleness and sloth, or whose 
 mind hankers after impure indulgence, is like the rotten tree 
 against which the wind blows, which can hardly resist its force, 
 but is soon blown down." * To this day the admission of a neo- 
 phyte is one of the most imposing of Buddhist rites. t 
 
 The number of inmates in some of the monasteries at the 
 present day is enormous. Hue and Gabet found 4000 at Koun- 
 boun. When Father Bury saw the Chinese bonze tonsured, using 
 the rosary, praying in an unknown tongue, and kneeling before 
 images, he said, " There is not a piece of dress, not a sacerdotal 
 function, not a ceremony of the court of Borne, which the devil 
 has not copied in this country;" and the young De Beauvoir 
 says, " What struck me was the outward resemblance of the 
 religious ceremonies of the temples to those of our own religion. 
 A bonze, surrounded with clouds of incense, and dressed in a 
 
 * Dhap. xxxiv. 
 
 t The rules of the order are translated in Beal's " Catena," p. 240. The 
 initiation is described by Rhys Davids in " Buddhism," y. X61. The 250 
 Monastic rules were translated into Chinese from the Sanskrit about 70' 
 a.d., and are therefore anterior to Christian Monasticism (" Catena," p. 189). 
 
22 Buddhism as knoion in China. 
 
 chasuble of red silk, officiated with great pomp."* The rock-cut 
 Buddhist temples of India, which date 200 years before our era, 
 have a nave, side aisles, and an apse round which the aisle is 
 carried, resembling in form the early Christian churches. The 
 rock-cut monasteries are also earlier in date than the Christian ; 
 there are between 700 and 800 in India, dating from 200 B.C. 
 to 500 A.D. 
 
 The wife of Buddha and their son were among the first ad- 
 mitted into the conventual orders ; others quickly followed. 
 We read of a young man whom Buddha called : " Follow me, 
 Yasa." The youth passed on ; but by night he returned secretly, 
 and was so won over by the loving character of the Master, that 
 he became his disciple. He ordained fifty- four of Yasa's friends 
 with the formula, " Follow me." One day a rich young man 
 came to Buddha clothed in costly garments and riding in a 
 sumptuous chariot ; he wished to become a disciple. Buddha, 
 looking on him, bid him return home and selling all that he 
 had, bestow his wealth in charity, so as to fit himself to become 
 a disciple, f Some joyous youths, seeking in a wood for a dancing- 
 girl, who had left them after a night's debauch, lighted on 
 Buddha seated under a tree, and asked him if had seen the girl, 
 he answered, " Listen to me, O youths ! I will ask you a ques- 
 tion. Whether is it better, think you, to find yourselves, or to 
 find the woman whom ye seek?" They replied, " It would cer- 
 tainly be better to find ourselves." Then Buddha invited them 
 to sit down, and he taught them the way of salvation, and they 
 became his disciples. He placed the highest ideal of purity 
 before his disciples : — " Say to yourself, ' I am placed in this sin- 
 ful world ; let me be as the spotless lily, unsoiled by the mud in 
 which it grows.' The heart is the busy contriver of lust ; com- 
 pose the heart, and those evil thoughts will all be still." 
 
 To all men Buddha taught the laws which o^ght to govern 
 the life of man. We will mention a few of these. 
 
 One day Buddha found his disciples in fierce anger because 
 the Master had been reviled by a priest. Gently does he rebuke 
 them : " Beloved ! if others speak against me, or against the 
 truth, be not displeased with them, or you will not be able to 
 judge whether they speak truly or not." 
 
 There was no limit to the forgiveness of injuries. Among the 
 parting words he spoke on the evening of his death are these : 
 " If a man should do you such injury as to chop your body in 
 pieces limb for limb, yet you ought to keep your heart in perfect 
 control ; no anger or resentment should affect you, nor a word 
 of reproach escape your lips ; for if you once give way to a bitter 
 
 * "Voyage," Japan, p. 151. t "Rom. Hist." 378. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 23 
 
 thought, you have erred from the right way." " To a man who 
 foolishly does me wrong, I will return my ungrudging love ; the 
 more evil comes from him to me, the more good shall return from 
 me to him." ' He explains to a young nobleman named Chamah 
 the four aspects under which patience exhibits itself in a son of 
 Buddha : " When reviled, he revileth not again ; when smitten, 
 he bears the blow without resentment ; when treated with anger 
 and passion, he returns love and good-will; when threatened 
 with death, he bears no malice." * " Liberality, courtesy, kindli- 
 ness, and unselfishness are to society what the linch-pin is to the 
 chariot." 
 
 He was singularly sympathetic, and could be touched by every 
 tale of sorrow. The only child of a young mother died, and she 
 carried the little cold body in her bosom,' and going from house 
 to house, entreated all she met to give her medicine to cure the 
 child. Among others she met Buddha. " Lord and master," she 
 said, " give me some medicine for my child." He bid her bring 
 a handful of mustard from a house in which no child, parent, 
 wife, husband, or slave, had died. She went to search ; but she 
 found that in every home death had entered, all said to her 
 gently, " Lady, the living are few, the dead are many." Then 
 at last, when she found no house free from death, the truth 
 broke gently upon her. She laid down her baby-boy and re- 
 turned to Buddha, who, when he saw her, said, <l You thought 
 that you alone had lost a son ; the law of death is among all 
 living creatures ; there is nothing that abides." She became his 
 disciple. 
 
 He set no limit to the power of faith. One day as Buddha 
 was preaching by the side of a deep and rapid river, a man ap- 
 peared on the other bank and walked across upon the surface of 
 the water. The villagers, astonished, asked him by what power 
 he did so marvellous a feat, he answered, " I asked the people 
 on the other side if I might cross without a boat, they said, 
 ' Yes, you can cross without fear ; ' then I walked over because 
 I believed. Simple faith and nothing more enabled me to do 
 so." Buddha said, " It is well spoken ! well spoken ! Faith 
 like yours alone can save the world; such faith alone can enabk 
 men to walk across dryshod to the other shore." " Faith with 
 obedience is the path of wisdom." t 
 
 " As flowers, when waved to and fro by the wind, scatter 
 their scent far and wide, so wide is the renown of the accumu- 
 lated merits of him who once is born and lives as he ought." 
 
 * " Letter to Dr. Rost," p. 5. 
 
 f Dhap. iv. The Dhammapada dates about 100 B.C.; it was translated 
 into Chinese about 149 a.d., by An-shi-ko, a Prince-Royal of the Parthians 
 (An-si), who left his kingdom, became a Buddhist monk, and went as a 
 missionary to China. 
 
24 Buddhism as knoivn in China. 
 
 Buddha once sent Auanda to ask an old man of eighty years , 
 why he had pulled down his old house and built a larger one, 
 when death was so near. The man gave his reason, and stated 
 the purposes of his numerous chambers. Buddha said, " ' I 
 have children and wealth,' such is the constant thought of the 
 fool. He is not even master of himself; what then are his 
 children and his money ? The fool who says he is wise is 
 foolish indeed." On the old man returning to his dwelling he 
 suddenly fell dead from a blow.* 
 
 He was very tender and loving towards children. A child 
 one day came beside him as he sat at a feast, and covered him- 
 self over with his robe. The disciples wished to drive him 
 way, but " the World-honoured One forbade them, and said, 
 Let him stay, and let him hide himself in my robes.' " 
 
 V. The Missionaries. — The salvation of all men was a new 
 thought in the world. It necessitated another thought equally 
 new, viz., the duty of preaching the way of salvation to the world. 
 The spirit of the true missionary inspired the soul of Buddha. As 
 soon as he had sixty disciples, he said to them, " There is laid on 
 us, who know the truth and who have been thereby made free, the 
 duty of giving mankind the priceless blessing of salvation : go 
 ye and visit the towns and villages throughout the land, preach 
 the excellent law, and teach men to believe in the triple gem, 
 Buddha, the law, and the church. Go ye, prepare the way 
 for my coming ; I will retire for a time into solitude." "Two 
 by two " he sent them forth, and bid them take " only one 
 robe, and one alms-bowl," for they were vowed to poverty. 
 Poverty was their bride, Charity their sister. As an earlier 
 Buddha, Wassabhu Tathagata, had said, "As the butterfly 
 alights on the flower and destroys not its form or its sweet- 
 ness, but sipping forthwith departs, so the mendicant fol- 
 lower of Buddha takes not nor hurts another's possessions." f 
 When he was left alone Buddha reflected, " These disciples of 
 mine are gone to convert the world. Delivered from sin and at 
 peace, they can now deliver others." " I will not die until this 
 holy religion becomes known to many people, and is grown 
 great, and is universally published among men." He then went 
 into the solitudes of Uravilva, and prepared himself by fasting 
 and meditation for the conversion of the fire-worshipper Kasyapa 
 and his brothers. This missionary plan he carried out every 
 year. In the rainy season he gathered round him his disciples 
 for instruction, and in the dry season he sent them forth to 
 preach the way of salvation and to make disciples. 
 
 The history of these missionaries is full of interest. ' The spirit 
 that animated them may be gathered from the story of one who 
 
 * Dhap. xiii. t " Catena," p. 159. 
 
Buddhism as known in China. 25 
 
 asked leave to preach to his relations. " ' The people of that 
 place,' said Buddha, ' are exceedingly violent. If they revile you, 
 what will you do?' — 'I will not revile again.' — 'If they strike 
 you?' — 'I will not strike in return.' — 'If they try to kill 
 you?' — 'Death is no evil in itself; I shall try neither to 
 hasten nor to delay my departure.' " When threatened by an 
 infuriated mob, one of the missionaries of later times con- 
 fronted them with the words, "If the whole world were to 
 come to terrify me, they could not cause me to be afraid." 
 Then when he had persuaded the people to listen, he dismissed 
 them with the simple words, "Do not hereafter give way to 
 anger; do not destroy the crops, for all men love happiness. 
 Show mercy to all living beings, and let men dwell in peace." * 
 Missionary zeal carried on the work after Buddha's death, whose 
 disciples went forth into all lands; and it received a great 
 impulse after the Council of Asoka. The names of the mission- 
 aries mentioned by the chronicler are inscribed on the relics 
 found at some of the stations, t The old chronicler closes his 
 first chapter on missions with the words, " Who would demur 
 when the salvation of the world is at stake ! " 
 
 The success of Buddhist missionaries is shown by the fact 
 that after more than two thousand years "Buddhism rules 
 supreme in Central, Northern, Eastern, and Southern Asia, and 
 it gradually absorbs whatever there is left of aboriginal heathen- 
 ism in that vast and populous area." % 
 
 VI. Buddha's Death. — When Buddha was eighty years of 
 age he felt death coming on. He lay down under some sal 
 trees, and calling his favourite disciples round him, he con- 
 versed with them long and earnestly. " It was now the middle 
 of the night/' says the Sutra ; " all was perfectly quiet and 
 still." For the sake of his disciples he gave a brief sum- 
 mary of the law. We will quote a few passages : " Beloved, 
 after my death keep my word with reverence, as the poor 
 man the pearl of great price which he has found. . . . 
 Keep the body temperate in all things. ... By self-control and 
 upright thought aim at emancipation. Conceal none of your 
 faults, but confess them before the congregation. ... Be con- 
 tent with such things as are allotted you. Keep your senses 
 within bound, just as a shepherd with his crook prevents the 
 sheep from straying into the neighbouring pastures. . . . The 
 heart is lord of the senses, govern therefore your heart well, for 
 it is like a venomous snake, a wild beast, a cruel robber, a great 
 
 * Max Miiller, " Chips," vol. iv. p. 257. 
 t Koppen, "Die Religion des Buddha," p. 188. » 
 t " Chips," vol. iv. p. 265. 
 
26 Buddhism as known, in China. 
 
 fire. . . . Kestrain therefore and keep in subjection your heart ; let 
 it not get the mastery. Above all things, let modesty govern 
 every thought and every word of your daily life. It is charac- 
 teristic of truly great men to keep the rules of moral restraint 
 without wavering, and to .exercise patience] without tiring. 
 Strive after wisdom, for it is a lamp shining in darkness, a 
 medicine for all diseases, a hatchet to cut down the tree of 
 sorrow, a strong and trustworthy boat to cross the sea of old age, 
 disease, and death. Continual perseverance is like a little fire 
 that keeps on burning, but he who tires in the practice of 
 religion is like a fire that goes out. Never forget self-examina- 
 tion and meditation ; for if you neglect them, all perseverance 
 is at an end. In the practice of these you put on a helmet of 
 defence, so that no sword can hurt you, and no enemy get the 
 advantage over you. Think only of the words I have given you ; 
 meditate on them on the mountain-pass and in the depths of the 
 valley, in the congregation and in the solitary cell. I, as the 
 good physician, knowing the disease which affects you, give this 
 as a medicine fit for the case ; without this you die. Like the 
 guide that knows the way, I direct you whither to go and what 
 path to follow ; without this you perish." 
 
 As Socrates in the " Phaedo" * asks his friends if they have any 
 doubts respecting the future life, so Buddha asks his disciples if 
 they have doubts concerning the Four Noble Truths which are 
 the foundation of his teaching. They answer, that their only 
 thought is " one of grief that the World-honoured One is about 
 to depart and enter Nirvana, just when we have entered on the 
 practice of the law, — as in the night a flash of lightning lights 
 up the way for the weary traveller and is gone, and he left to 
 wander in the dark." He said, " Lament not my departure. 
 If I continued in the world it would do no good ; those who were 
 to be saved are saved ; those who are not saved shall be saved 
 by the seeds of truth I have sown. The word I have preached 
 is everlasting and imperishable. The world is fast bound in 
 fetters and oppressed with affliction ; I now give it deliverance, 
 a physician who brings heavenly wisdom." His favourite dis- 
 ciple, Ananda, here turned aside to weep.f " I am not yet per- 
 fect, and my master is passing away." Buddha called him : 
 " Ananda ! do not weep, let not your heart be troubled. 
 Sooner or later we must part from all we hold most dear." 
 
 Then to all his disciples: "When I have passed away, 
 and am no longer with you in bodily presence, do not think 
 that the Buddha has left you, and is not still in your midst. 
 You have my words, my explanations of the deep things 
 
 * " Phasdo," 84. f Of. "Phsedo," 59, 117. 
 
Buddhism as known 'in China. 27 
 
 of truth, the laws I have laid down ; let them be your guide — 
 Buddha has not left you. Beloved ! if you revere my memory, 
 love all the disciples as you love me. Love my words. Beloved ! 
 keep your minds on these. All other things change, my word 
 changeth not. I will speak no more with you. I desire to 
 depart. I desire Nirvana. These are my last words with you." As 
 the sun rose, the old man calmly and unconsciously passed away* 
 
 As at Buddha's birth the aged Asita laid his venerable 
 head beneath the infant's feet, so at the funeral the "old 
 and wrinkled " Kasyapa thrice perambulated the pyre,-J- and said, 
 " May I once more behold the sacred feet, and bow my head 
 before them." J 
 
 Legends collect around the funeral, which was by cremation, 
 after the "old rule of the wheel kings." None could move 
 the sacred coffin, which rose by itself into the air ; none could 
 light the funereal pyre, which became self-enkindled. Then, in 
 order that the relics of the sacred body migh,t be preserved, 
 Sakra, pouring water from the golden pitcher, extinguished the 
 flames of the royal sandalwood pyre.§ The relics, which were 
 like a heap of pearls, shed around sweet perfume. Afterwards 
 came gorgeous retinues of the princes carrying golden vessels 
 for the relies, each emulous to raise precious chaityas over the 
 remains. 
 
 The personal influence of Buddha while he lived, the enthu- 
 siasm for humanity with which he inspired his followers, the 
 attractive beauty of character which he bequeathed " a rich 
 legacy " to mankind, place him as the central figure of his 
 religion. The result has been that he has been idealised until 
 he is regarded as divine, and omniscient, and free from all sin. 
 " There is no deity above him ; he stands out alone, unrivalled, 
 unequalled, and unapproachable." || Prayers are addressed to him, 
 flowers and incense offered, and his relics are enshrined in stupas. 
 Nevertheless, Gautama stands only as one in a long chain of 
 
 * " Sutra of Buddha's Dying Instructions," translated in Beal's Letter 
 to Dr. Rost, p. 9 ; and Rhys Davids, Encycl. Brit, 
 t So at the funeral rites of Patrocles — 
 
 " Thrice in procession round the dead they drove 
 Their coursers sleek."— II. xxiii. 13. 
 % The last act towards a corpse among the Jews is for the friends to 
 uncover the feet, and touching the two great toes, ask pardon for offences 
 •against them, and desire to be remembered in the other world. At 
 the entombment of Pope Pius IX., the Cardinals, in passing the body 
 on their way to their seats in the chapel of the choir, stopped for a 
 moment and kissed his foot. 
 
 § Apollo sends a miraculous rain to preserve Croesus from the fire. 
 Herod., i. 84. 
 
 || "Analysis of Religious Belief," Lord Amberley, ii. 146. 
 
28 Buddhism as known in China. 
 
 Buddhas who have preceded him, and who will follow. His teach- 
 ing was higher and nobler than the teaching of those who came 
 before him ; the teaching of the Buddhas who will in the course 
 of the ages follow will be greater and more divine than was his. 
 Therefore he bade men look forward to and hail their advent.* 
 The next Buddha will be Maitreya, the Buddha of charity.f 
 
 It is difficult to fix the exact date of Buddha's death ; it may 
 have been as early as 477,J or as late as 412 B.c.§ Upon his 
 death, Kasyapa claimed to be leader of the assembly, because 
 Buddha had said to him, " Thou shalt wear my hempen robes." 
 Therefore Kasyapa, fearing lest the words of Buddha should 
 be forgotten, summoned an assembly of five hundred disciples ; 
 and the young Ananda, Buddha's beloved disciple, recited aloud 
 the Sutras. Missionaries carried the words abroad to all lands ; 
 the religion spread over India, and King Asoka made it the 
 state religion of his dominions about the year 250 B.C. He pro- 
 mulgated decrees which remain to this day inscribed on stone 
 pillars and cut in the living rock, enjoining morality and tolera- 
 tion, justice and charity, on his subjects ; commanding the 
 foundation of hospitals ; || appointing a minister of religion, who 
 should preserve the purity of the faith and protect the aborigines 
 and subject nations, and a minister of education, who should 
 promote the instruction of the women in the harems and else- 
 where in the principles of the religion of Buddha. The son 
 and daughter of Asoka introduced it into Ceylon, where it still 
 retains its purity. Missionaries carried it into Kashmir in the 
 first century a.d., and into Burmah in the fifth century, and 
 thence into Siam in the seventh century. In the golden age of 
 India, the state religion was Buddhist. We catch glimpses of 
 its influence in the travels of the Chinese pilgrims Fa-hian 
 in 400 a.d., of Sung-Yun in 518, and of Hiouen-Thsang in 
 629-648 a.d.^[ For a thousand years it maintained its supre- 
 macy. In the eighth or ninth century a.d., there seems to 
 have been a reaction against it in favour of Brahmanism, and a 
 persecution to have taken place, which was so thorough that 
 there is now scarcely a Buddhist in India. In this it resembles 
 the history of Christianity ; the Aryan race from whose bosom it 
 sprang cast it forth, and it became the religion of a race entirely 
 different, the Turanian. 
 
 VII. Christians of all shades of opinion have spoken with 
 
 * Of. "Ph£edo," 78 ; " Alcibiades," II. 13. 
 
 t Maitreya, possessed of love, (root Maitra, love or charity.) Fa-hian, 
 p. 20 n. J Max Muller, " Chips," i. 311. 
 
 § Rhys David's " Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon." 
 
 || Westminster Review, New Series, civ., p. 435. 
 
 T " Memoires sur les Contrees Occidentales," par Hiouen-Thsang, en 
 a.d. 648, St. Julien. Paris, 1857. 
 
Buddhism as hnoivn in China. 29 
 
 reverence of Buddha. The Venetian Marco Polo said, " Indeed 
 had he been a Christian, he would have been a great saint of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the. life he led ;" and he 
 tells us how pilgrims came to Adam's Peak in Ceylon " from very 
 long distances with great devotion, just as Christians go to the 
 shrine of Messer Saint James in Gallicia."* M. St. Hilaire 
 says, " Je n'hesite pas a ajouter que, sauf le Christ tout seul, il 
 n'est point, parmi les fondateurs de religion, de figure plus pure 
 ni plus touchante que celle de Bouddha. Sa vie n'a point de 
 tache. Son constant heroiisme egale sa conviction ; et si la 
 theorie qu'il preconise est fausse, les exemples personnels qu'il 
 donne sont irreprochable. II est le modele acheve de toutes les 
 vertus' qu'il pre 1 cha."f Mr. Baring-Gould bears witness that 
 " the ethic code of Buddha can hardly be ranked lower than that 
 of Christianity ; and it is immeasurably superior to every heathen 
 system that the world has ever seen." \ 
 
 But, most remarkable of all, is the fact that Buddha is a 
 canonised saint of the Christian Church. St. John of Damascus 
 in the eighth century wrote a religious romance, of which the 
 narrativeis taken from the "Lalita Vistara," the story of Buddha's 
 life. It became very popular in the Middle Ages, and the hero 
 was canonised. He has his festal days in the Roman communion 
 on 27th November, in the Eastern on 26th August, under the 
 name of Josaphat, a corruption of Bodhisattva.§ 
 
 In all times and in all places men have lived pure and holy 
 lives, and have shown themselves Christians even " before Christ 
 came in the flesh." || Buddha, whose teaching approaches nearer 
 than does that of any other founder of a religion to the teaching 
 of Christ, has won, by the attractive beauty of his character, the 
 unconscious -homage of Christendom. He has been placed in 
 the golden roll of Christian saints, side by side with St. Francis 
 dAsissi and other founders of religious orders, with St. Francis 
 Xavier and other missionary heroes, and with St. Francis de 
 Sales and other saintly men. Worthily does he stand among 
 " the sons of God who were righteous in their lives." If 
 
 " They were lovely and pleasant in theie lives, 
 And in their death they were not divided." • 
 
 * Fule's ed., ii. 258. " He only is a pilgrim who goeth towards or fro- 
 wards the house of St. James, . . . who journey unto the holy house of 
 Gallicia." — Dante, Vita Nuova. 
 
 t " Le Bouddha et sa Eeligion,'' introd. v. 
 
 % " Development of Christianity," i. 357. 
 
 § Max Miiller, "Chips," iv. 174-189 ; Beal's " Fa-hian," p. 86, u. 
 
 || Cf. St. Aug., "Ketract.," i. 13. II Plato, "Apology," 41. 
 
PRE-CHRISTIAN 
 DISPENSARIES AND HOSPITALS. 
 
 JOHN NEWENHAM HOAEE, M.A. 
 
 1 ' A good man will succour the distressed." 
 
 Sophocles, Frag. 661. 
 
 LONDON. 
 1878. 
 
 C, 
 
PRE-CHRISTIAN DISPENSARIES 
 AND HOSPITALS. 
 
 Reprinted from the Westminster Review, October 1877. 
 
 The great religions of the world have endeavoured to inculcate 
 the love of Divine Goodness. Their ideal of Divine Goodness may- 
 have been different, but the love, and the striving after the ideal 
 has always been the same. 
 
 This love of Divine Goodness has been expressed both in the 
 theoretical teaching of priests and prophets and philosophers and 
 in the practical working of their everyday life. The various points 
 at which the scientific theology and the practical morality of the 
 great world-religions touch and blend with each other, is one 
 of the most interesting problems in the science of comparative 
 religion. 
 
 The private characters of men like Rameses the Great in Egypt, 
 David in Israel, Socrates in Greece, Buddha in India, Confucius 
 in China, Epictetus the slave and M. Aurelius the Emperor in 
 Rome ; the national ideals of Egyptain morality, Hebrew right- 
 eousness, Greek culture, Buddhist self-sacrificing charity, and 
 Roman love of law ; are alike the result of the religious con- 
 science of mankind in different ages and in divers civilisations. 
 Erom this public and this private excellence of character there 
 naturally flowed some practical results of national beneficence, 
 such as orphanages, officers of health appointed by the state for 
 the relief of the sick poor, dispensaries and hospitals. We might 
 expect to find them, and we do find them. 
 
 The doctrines, the ideal and the actual lives, the national char- 
 acteristics developed by the dominant religions, have been made 
 a subject of inquiry in Europe and America; but, so far as I 
 know, no one has suggested the importance of investigating 
 public charitable institutions as a common heritage bequeathed to 
 mankind by each religion in its manhood and its strength. 
 
4 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 I have chosen as the subject of this paper Medical Officers, 
 Dispensaries, and Hospitals. In the course of my research I came 
 across some information relating to the early history of medicine, 
 which I have inserted with the hope it may make the paper more 
 interesting. 
 
 The great religions have so invariably inculcated Divine Good- 
 ness as an aim of life, that I have only briefly referred to it now 
 and again, leaving its practical realisation to speak for itself, in 
 the fact that medical officers, dispensaries, and hospitals are 
 found wherever there has been high civilisation and cultured 
 religion. 
 
 The hospital is simply the development of the dispensary, 
 which is a necessary requirement of the medical officer appointed 
 and paid by the state for the relief of the sick poor. Some 
 room is required by the medical officer in which to see his patients 
 and dispense the drags, and this room naturally developed into 
 the hospital ward, where the patients could be continuously under 
 his eye, and be more carefully attended than in their own homes. 
 It is therefore in the medical officer appointed and paid by the 
 state that we are to find the earliest germ and first idea of the 
 vast network of hospitals which has spread over the civilised 
 countries of the world. 
 
 These medical officers were an institution in Egypt from a re- 
 mote antiquity, for in the eleventh century B.C. there was a College 
 of Physicians in the receipt of public pay, and regulated by law as 
 to the nature and extent of their practice. At Athens, in the fifth 
 century B.C., there were physicians elected and paid by the citizens ; 
 there were also dispensaries in which they received their patients, 
 and we find mention made of one hospital. In the fourth cen- 
 tury B.C. an edict was promulgated in India by King Asoka com- 
 manding the establishment of hospitals throughout his dominions ; 
 and we have direct proof that these hospitals were flourishing in 
 the fifth and in the seventh centuries A.d. There was probably a 
 leper-house outside the walls of Jerusalem ; and medical officers 
 were attached in early times to the Temple, and in later times to 
 the synagogues. Among the Romans under the Empire, physi- 
 cians were elected in every city in proportion to the number of 
 inhabitants, and they received a salary from the public treasury. 
 And the ancient Mexicans had hospitals in the principal cities 
 " for the cure of the sick, and the permanent refuge of disabled 
 soldiers." Army-surgeons are of very remote antiquity, for we 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 5 
 
 read of them in Homer ; and they won the admiration of Plato, 
 because " they were heroes as well as physicians ; " but there is 
 no notice of the military hospital before the reign of Hadrian. 
 Hospitals exclusively for the treatment of the insane are of com- 
 paratively modern growth, and are first found among the Moham- 
 medans ; they afterwards spread among Christian countries, the 
 earliest being found in Spain, the country most influenced by 
 Mohammedan thought* 
 
 It was around the temples that the early medical schools 
 centred, for it was natural to regard the "divine art of heal- 
 ing" as a gift of the gods.f It is Brahma who writes the 
 Ayur-Veda, the Science of Life ; it is iEsculapius who appears 
 in human form at Epidaurus and extends his saving right hand 
 over all the earth to heal the souls that are in error and the 
 bodies that are diseased ;+ and Prometheus in the midst of 
 his sufferings declares that he has gifted mankind with the 
 true science of medicine. § The priests were the first physicians ; 
 and on the walls of the temples of Egypt and of Greece were 
 suspended the observations and the votive tablets of the cures 
 they effected. These tablets are very curious, because they are 
 a strange medley of rational medical treatment with the supersti- 
 tion of charms and incantations ; and they are most important, 
 because they not unfrequently enable us to trace the rise of scep- 
 ticism in the charm and incantation, and the struggle between 
 the waning power of the priest and the increasing skill of the 
 physician. 
 
 The Babylonians and Assyrians alone, among the great nations 
 of antiquity, had no physicians. The sick man was laid on a 
 couch in the public square, and the passers-by were required to 
 ask him the nature of his disease, so that if they or any of their 
 acquaintance had been similarly afflicted, they might advise him 
 as to the remedies he should adopt. || This custom commended 
 itself to Herodotus, who thought it almost as wise as their other 
 custom of selling the girls of the village in marriage, so that the 
 " fairer maidens portioned off the plainer." As a consequence, 
 incantations to drive out the evil spirit of disease were in much 
 request, and the nature of their operation may be gathered from 
 the following tablet : — 
 
 "God shall stand. by his bedside ; those seven evil spirits He 
 
 * Desmaisons, Des Asiles d'Alienes en Espagne, Paris, 1859. W. E. H. 
 Lecky, Hist, of European Morals, ii. 85 sq. 
 
 t Cicero, Tusc. Dis., iii. 1. Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxix. 1. 
 
 j Emp. Julian contr. Christ. § jEsch., Prometheus, 476 sq. 
 
 \\ Herod, i. 197, iii. 129. Strabo, xvi. c. 1. 
 
6 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 shall root out and expel from his body ; those seven shall never 
 return to the sick man." * 
 
 (1.) Egypt claimed the invention of medicine.t This claim is 
 partially recognised in Homer, when Polydamna gives medicinal 
 herbs to Helen in Egypt, " a country producing an infinite num- 
 ber of drugs, and where the physician possesses knowledge above 
 all other men ; " \ and is fully endorsed by M. Chabas after a 
 careful comparison of the medical papyrus at Berlin with the best 
 medical works of Greece and Eome.§ 
 
 The extreme antiquity of medical science in Egypt may be 
 inferred from the fact that the medical papyrus at Berlin, four- 
 teenth century B.C., contains the copy of a treatise on inflammation 
 (puchet) which was found "written in ancient writing, rolled up 
 in a coffer under the feet of an Anubis in the town of Sokhem 
 (Letopolis), in the time of his sacred Majesty Thot the Eighteous. 
 After his death it was handed on to King Snat on account of its 
 importance. It was then restored to its place under the feet of 
 the statue, and sealed up by the sacred scribe and wise chief of 
 the physicians." || 
 
 Medical science attained so high a degree of perfection in 
 Egypt, that there were specialists in the different branches of the 
 art, and the physician was only allowed to practise in his own 
 branch. There were oculists and dentists, those who treated 
 mental disorders, and those who investigated obscure diseases — 
 ol Se tojv d(pavewv vovacov.li There are medical papyri which 
 treat of these several diseases. In the Hermaic books a whole 
 chapter is devoted to diseases of the eye, and mummies have 
 been found in Thebes with their teeth stopped in gold.** Athothos, 
 son and successor to Menes, the first King of Egypt, wrote a book 
 on anatomy, ft The medical papyrus at Berlin contains a treatise 
 on midwifery, and not less than 170 prescriptions for the cure of 
 diseases, of which the diagnosis is carefully recorded. J J In these 
 treatises diseases are regarded as enemies, not simply to be cured, 
 but to be attacked, destroyed, driven forth ;§§ a vestige, apparently, 
 
 * H.F.Talbot,' Assyrian Talismans andExorcisms. Cf. St. Matthew, xli. 45. 
 
 + Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 56. | Od., iv. 229. 
 
 § Melanges Egypt., La Midecine des Anciens Egyptiens. || Ibid. 
 
 IT Herod., ii. 84. See Sir G. Wilkinson's valuable note ; also Ancient 
 Egyptians, iii. 388-397. 
 
 H * Sir G. Wilkinson states that he saw gold in the teeth of a mummy, 
 " not gold-leaf, but thin gold." Mr Bonomi saw " teeth formed of wood " 
 in a mummy. Trans. Odontol. Soc. vol. vii. p. 7. A skeleton was found 
 at Quito with false teeth secured with gold-wire. — Bollaert, Antiquities 
 of N. Granada, p. 83. 
 
 ft Manetho, quoted in Brugsch, Histoire d'Egypte. 
 
 JJ Translated by Brugsch, Notice raisonne d'un Traite medical datant 
 clu xivme Siecle avant uotre ere ; and Chabas, M61anges Egypt., i. 
 
 §§ Chabas, i. 79. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 7 
 
 of the ancient superstition that diseases were devils which pos- 
 sessed the patient. 
 
 To guard the people against quacks and the rash experiments 
 of young doctors, the Egyptian physicians were required to 
 follow the rules laid down in the medical treatises preserved in 
 the principal temple of each city ; the idea being that the old 
 must be better than the new.* Aristotle, however, says that they 
 were allowed to alter the orthodox treatment ; yet if they 
 did so, it was at their peril, as their own lives were forfeit for 
 the life of the patient. + This rule, when followed, secured the 
 physicians of Egypt from the accusation which Pliny brings 
 against the profession in his day : It is at the expense of our 
 perils that they learn, and they experimentalize by putting us to 
 death. The physician is the only person allowed to kill with' 
 impunity, the blame being thrown on the sick man who is dead 
 and gone.f 
 
 In Egypt, about the eleventh century B.C., there was a College 
 of Physicians.§ who seem to have belonged to the sacerdotal 
 caste, as did also the embalmers who are styled "physicians" 
 in Genesis. They were not confined to one sex ; the sculptures 
 confirm Exodus i. 15 that women practised medicine. 
 
 The physicians were the paid officers of the state, and we may 
 therefore conclude that they were required to treat the poor gratui- 
 tously ; || and as they were not likely to attend the sick in their own 
 houses, except in extreme cases, we may further assume that, as in the 
 case of Athens, there were official houses to which the sick poor 
 repaired at fixed times, which correspond to our medical dispen- 
 saries. Although paid by the state," they were allowed to receive 
 fees.^f This care for the sick poor is a trait of character we 
 might naturally expect from a people on whose sarcophagi we 
 meet with inscriptions which tell how the deceased " succoured 
 the afflicted, gave bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, 
 clothes to the naked, shelter to the outcast ; that he opened his 
 doors to the stranger, and was a father to the afflicted." 
 
 In the time of Herodotus " every place in Egypt was full of 
 doctors," whence Pliny concluded that no country was so un- 
 healthy ; yet Herodotus says that few countries were so salubrious, 
 which he attributes to the uniformity of the climate.** 
 
 Although the older papyri show that the medical treatment of 
 disease was rational, post-mortems even being made to discover 
 the source of disease,tt yet charms and incantations- were by no 
 
 * Diod. Sic, i. 82. t Pol., iii. 11. 
 
 J Nat. Hist., xxix. 1. § Brugsch, Hist. d'Egypte, c. ix. 
 
 || Sir G. Wilkinson in Herod., he. cit. 1 Diod., i. 82. 
 
 ** Herod., ii. 84. tt Pliny, xix. 5. 
 
8 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 means excluded ; and dreams were granted to devout souls who 
 had consulted physicians in vain, and the votive offerings of arms, 
 ears, eyes, &c, which still adorn the ancient temples,* show how 
 readily the superstitious element found its place in Egypt, as it 
 afterwards did in Greece and Eome,t and as it does to this day in 
 many European Christian countries. 
 
 There is a curious inscription in the temple of the god Chonson 
 at Thebes, which points to a struggle between reason and faith, 
 between the skill of the physician and the prayer of the priest. 
 Eamses XII. summons before him the " Scribe of the Houses of 
 Life," and orders him to select one who shall be " a man of an intel- 
 ligent heart and skilful fingers," that he may be sent to cure the 
 young Princess of Bouchten. She is the " little sister " of the royal 
 wife, and bears the Semitic name Bentrash. The physician fails 
 to cure the damsel, for she is possessed with an evil spirit. Then 
 the god Chonson is sent from Thebes to Bouchten in a great 
 barge, escorted by five smaller barges on the river, and by nobles, 
 with the god's chariot and horses, along the banks. When the 
 god arrives, he communicates to the Princess " his virtue of life," 
 and the evil spirit comes forth. J We, unfortunately, only possess 
 the priests' version of the story ; but it points to a rivalry between 
 the rational science of the physicians and the superstitious faith 
 of the priests. 
 
 The fame of the medicine of Egypt spread to all lands. Cyrus 
 the Persian hears of it, ana sends to King Amasis of Egypt for 
 an oculist.§ Darius the Great had at his court " certain Egyptian 
 physicians, whom he reckoned the best-skjlled physicians in the 
 world." || The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah says, "0 virgin daughter 
 of Egypt, in vain shalt thou use many medicines; thou shalt not 
 be cured." T It lasted until the time of the Antonines, so that 
 Galen, the " wonder-worker," thought it no small gain to have 
 studied in the schools of Alexandria ;** and it is preserved to our 
 own day, wrapped up like one of its own mummies, in the words 
 chemistry, alchemy, which tell us that the cradle of medical 
 science was in the land of the great god Chemmis, who had 
 given to Egypt its ancient name, Chemi.ft 
 
 (2.) A story told by Herodotus of the Egyptian physicians at 
 the court of Darius will serve to carry us from the school of 
 
 * Wilkinson gives some of these ex votos in vol. iii. p. 395. 
 
 t Frie,dlander, iv. 239. 
 
 j Brugsch, Hist. d'Egypte, c. ix., Berlin, 1859. § Herod., iii. 1. 
 
 || Herod., iii. 131, 132. <fl Jer. xlvi. 11. ** Friedlander, lib. ii. c. 4. 
 
 ft Chabas, Papyrus Hierogl., p. 55. Por some time in England there 
 were two ill-omened days in each month called " Egyptian days," supposed 
 to be prescribed by the Egyptians as unwholesome for bleeding (Dean 
 Stanley's Westminster Abbey, p. 53 n.). 
 
Pre-CJiristian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 9 
 
 Egypt to the schools of Greece. One day * when mounting his 
 horse, Darius sprained his foot, The Egyptian physicians thought 
 it was a dislocation, and put the king to such pain by the violence 
 of their treatment, that for seven days and seven nights his sleep 
 went from him. On the eighth day some of the courtiers told 
 him of a Greek prisoner among the slaves of Oroetes, named 
 Democedes, who came from the famous medical school of Crotona, 
 In such haste was Democedes summoned into the King's presence, 
 that he appeared "just as he was, clanking his fetters and wearing 
 his rags." He reversed the treatment of the Egyptians, and 
 cured the king. From that day no one stood so high in the 
 favour of Darius as Democedes. He also cured of a sore in the 
 breast, Atossa, daughter of Cyrus and wife to Darius, and she 
 rewarded him by aiding him to make his escape to Greece ; 
 whence he returned to Crotona, and married the daughter of 
 his fellow-townsman, Milo the Wrestler, who had carried off 
 the prize six times at the Olympic and seven times at the 
 Pythian games (sixth century B.C.). Crotona was celebrated quite 
 as much for her athletes as for her physicians ; indeed, it was a 
 proverb that the last among the wrestlers of Crotona were the 
 first among the other Greeks.f This is a point of much 
 interest ; the same place that produced the best trainer of 
 athletes would naturally produce the best physician^ because the 
 healthy condition of the man's body was the aim of both ; and 
 as the trainer would soon learn not to trust in charms and incan- 
 tations as preparations for the games, so would the^ physician 
 learn to distrust charms, and to strive after a rational system of 
 medicine. The physicians of Crotona would have agreed with 
 Plato that the art of the physician was to cure the sickness and 
 the wounds of men of good constitutions only, and to leave the 
 weak and sickly to their fate ; and applaud him when he quoted 
 the tradition that Asclepius had been struck by lightning because 
 he so far forgot the sacred obligations of his art as to allow him- 
 self to be bribed to heal a rich man who was at the point of death. 
 Indeed Plato complained of what he calls " our present system 
 of medicine " as being calculated to " educate diseases," and as 
 opposed to the old practice of the Guild of Asclepius. He lays 
 the blame at the door of Herodicus, a trainer who had a sickly 
 Constitution : " He, by a happy combination of training and 
 doctoring, found out the way of torturing, first and principally 
 himself, and secondly the rest of the world, by the^inyention of a 
 
 * Herod., iii. 131. t Strabo, vi. 1, 13. 
 
 J Aristotle, in Grote's History of Greece, iii. 342-344, ed. 1862. Ouvres 
 d'Hippocrate, Introd. pp. 22, 23, Littre. 
 
 A 2 
 
10 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 lingering death." * Plato might laugh at Herodicus, nevertheless 
 he was the master of Hippocrates, the " Father of Medicine " — 
 fifth century B.C. 
 
 All medical science before the time of Hippocrates was, says 
 Pliny, " lost in the densest night ; he was the first to compile a 
 code of medical precepts," f derived partly from the traditions of 
 the family of the Asclepiadse to which he belonged,! and partly 
 from the study of the votive tablets in the great temple at Cos.§ 
 Dion Cassius says that Democedes of Crotona and Hippocrates of 
 Cos were the two most distinguished physicians of antiquity.|] 
 Galen tells us that the Asclepiadse founded the three great medical 
 schools of Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos. These were Doric settle- 
 mentSjH and we find that their influence survived as late as the 
 fifth century B.C. by the use of the Doric dialect both in medical 
 conversation and prescriptions,** and also in the prose oracles 
 given at Delphi, which were so largely consulted by the sick.ff 
 
 At Athens, in the time of Plato, we find that some of the 
 physicians were elected by the people and paid from the public 
 treasury. Socrates, for instance, speaks of one "desiring to 
 obtain a medical appointment from the Government " (larpiicov 
 ep*fov),\\ and there was a technical term applied especially to 
 physicians who practised with a public salary, hr]fioaieveiv.%% 
 These state physicians, after they had been elected in the Ecclesia 
 or other assembly, || || appear to have appointed slave doctors under 
 them to attend on the poor, while they attended on the rich, and 
 either by their own or the eloquence of some friendly rhetorician HH 
 persuaded the patient to drink the medicine or to submit to the 
 knife and the hot iron. Indeed this system of persuasion as a 
 part of the medical art became at last ridiculous : " Foolish fellow ! 
 you are not healing the sick man, you are educating him ; and he 
 does not want to be made a doctor, but to get well ; " *** and in the 
 next generation it was completely exploded ; for, as Aristotle says, 
 the duty of a physician is simply to prescribe. fff 
 
 Very different is the offhand manner in which the slave 
 doctors treated their patients ; they waste no words with them, 
 but run about from one patient to another, and dose them as they 
 
 * Rep., iii. 406, ed. Jowett. Cf. the Jewish saying, " Death is better 
 than a continual sickness." — Ecclus. xxx. 17. 
 
 + Nat. Hist., xxix. 2, xxvi. 6. t LittrS, Ouvres d'Hippocrate, introd. 
 
 § Strabo, xiv.Ji. 19. Cf. viii. vi. 15. || Dion Cassius, xxxviii. 18. 
 
 IT C. Miiller, The Dorians, i. 114. The Rhodiaus spoke Doric in the 
 time of Tiberius. — Sueton., Tib., 56. 
 
 ** " Medicos dorice loquentes." — Meineke, Frag. Com. Grsec, ii. 249. 
 
 ft C. Miiller, On the Doric Dialect, ii. 439. 
 
 XI Xen., Mem., iv. ii. 5. §§ Liddell and Scott, Lex. 
 
 HI) Gorg., 456. TIT Ibid. *** Laws., 857. ttt Pol., iv. 2. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 11 
 
 think proper ; or they " wait for them in their dispensaries," 
 iv t. uvrpeloiv.* This passage clearly shows that there were at 
 Athens, in the fifth century B.C., dispensaries to which the sick 
 poor repaired to be treated for their diseases ; not indeed by the 
 most skilful physicians, but by physicians paid by the state to 
 look after their ailments. These dispensaries varied in number 
 according to the prevalence of disease : " Where diseases increase 
 in a state, then larpela are always being opened."t 
 
 The temples of Asclepius were, however, the schools in which 
 the students who had taken the noble Hippocratic oath studied, 
 partly from the votive tablets, and partly from the treatment of the 
 patients who resorted thither. That patients did resort to the 
 temples is evident from the amusing scene described by the slave 
 who attended Plutus when he went to the temple to be cured of 
 his blindness. When night came on, all were commanded to keep 
 silence, and not to move should they hear the god passing before 
 the altars. The slave peeps through a hole in his threadbare 
 cloak, and sees the priest " consecrate into a sack " the offerings 
 of cakes and dried figs made by the sick. { Afterwards there 
 followed the mixing of the drugs with the pestle and mortar, and 
 the anointing the eyes with the ointment. The patients were 
 of both sexes, for it was an old woman whose savoury posset 
 excited the cupidity of the slave Cario.§ 
 
 There is one, though we regret to say only one, hospital 
 (iraimviov) mentioned in Greek literature, and that only by one 
 author, the comic poet Crates, middle of fifth century B.C. It was 
 situated probably in the Piraeus — iirl t»J? 0aXdcro-r)<s. |[ 
 
 The state physicians did not receive private fees, but their 
 state emoluments may be guessed by the pay of Democedes before 
 he was carried prisoner to the kingdom of Darius. He fled from 
 his father, who was a celebrated physician of his day at Crotona, 
 and came to iEgina, where his skill caused the state to hire him 
 at £243, 15s. a year ; in the next year the Athenians engaged him 
 at £406, 15s.; in the next, Polycrates obtained him for £487, lOs.^f 
 The first payment made to him by Darius was a pair of golden 
 fetters, to remind him, perhaps, that although he would now be 
 laden with honours and wealth, yet he was to remain a prisoner, 
 exiled from his native land. 
 
 (3.) Hitherto we have met only with state physicians and dis- 
 
 * Laws., 720. t Rep-, 405. 
 
 X Cf. Hist, of Bel and the Dragon, c. i. 
 
 § Aristophanes, Plutua. 
 
 || Meineke, Comic. Grsec. Frag. Qrjp. ii. " Hujus nosocomei publica for- 
 tasse auctoritate constituti, nullus prseterea scriptor memoriam servavit" 
 (vol. ii. p. 239). 
 
 H Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, i. 160, London, 1828. 
 
i2 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 pensafies, and but one hospital ; it is to India we must turn to see 
 a system of hospitals spreading over the country. 
 
 When Brahma took compassion on the weakness and suffering 
 of mankind, and wrote for them the commentary on the Vedas, 
 he devoted one treatise to the science of medicine. Hence it 
 was that the ancient Hindus ascribed to the medical art a divine 
 origin and that the Brahmans were the first physicians. Frag- 
 ments only of this Ayur- Veda remain, but they are sufficient to 
 show an advanced knowledge of the art, in that they treat both of 
 surgery and the practice of medicine.* 
 
 Soon after the conquests of Alexander the Great, Megasthenes 
 the Greek was sent on an embassage to the court of Sandro- 
 cothes, where he resided for some years. Among his notes, pre- 
 served by Strabo, we find that " next in honour to the Sramans 
 were the physicians, for they apply philosophy to the study of the 
 nature of man; . . . they cure diseases by diet rather than by medi- 
 cinal remedies." t The grandson of Sandrocothes was the cele- 
 brated King Asoka, 325-282 B.C., one of the greatest monarchs 
 who ever graced a throne. He embraced the religion of Buddha, i 
 and almost immediately afterwards promulgated a series of edicts, 
 some score of which still exist inscribed on pillars and graven in 
 the living rock. Among these there occurs the following, as 
 translated by Mr. Prinsep .: — " Everywhere within the province of 
 Piyadasi (Asoka), the beloved of heaven, as well as in the parts 
 occupied by the faithful, . . . and moreover within the dominion 
 of Antiochus the Greek [the Bactrian kingdom], . . . everywhere 
 the heaven-beloved Piyadasi's double system of medical aid is 
 established — both medical aid for men and medical aid for 
 animals — together with medicaments of all sorts which are suit- 
 able ; . . . and where they are not, they are to be prepared, and 
 to be planted, both root-drugs and herbs." J There is also a 
 legend that Asoka seeing how people often died from diseases 
 and sores which were at first simple and easily cured, established 
 public dispensaries at the four gates of .Patna. § In the year 
 400 A.D., seven hundred years after Asoka's edict, the Chinese 
 pilgrim, Fa-Hian, visited India, and casually mentions in his 
 Travels that he found hospitals in complete working order at 
 Asoka's own city of Patna : " The nobles and landowners of this 
 country have founded hospitals in the city, to which the poor of 
 all countries, the destitute, the cripples, the diseased, may repair 
 for shelter. They receive every kind of requisite help gratuitously. 
 Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases 
 
 * T. A. Wise, Review of the History of Medicine, vol. i., London, 1867. 
 
 t India, xv. i. 36. 
 
 X Edict II. § Spiers, Ancient India, p. 319. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals, 13 
 
 order them food and drink, decoctions and medicines, everything, 
 in fact, which may contribute to their ease. When cured, they 
 depart at their own convenience." * 
 
 Two hundred and fifty years later (648 A.D.), another Chinese 
 pilgrim, Hiouen-Thsang, visited India, and mentions hospitals at 
 several places. At the Port of the Ganges " les rois qui aiment 
 a faire le bien, y ont e'tabli une maison de bienfaisance, qui est 
 pourvue de mets recherche's et de medicaments de tout genre, 
 pour donner l'aumone aux veufs et aux veuves, et secourir les 
 orphelins." Elsewhere he says : " Les grands personnages des 
 cinq Indes . . . ont e'tabli des maisons de. bienfaisance, ou l'on 
 distribue des boissons, des vivres, et des medicaments pour secourir 
 les pauvres et les malades." " II y avait jadis dans ce royaume une 
 multitude de maisons de bienfaisance, ou Ton secourait les mal- 
 heureux."f These houses were hospices as well as hospitals at the 
 time of Hiouen-Thsang's visit. 
 
 At the commencement of the present century there still 
 flourished at Surat a hospital set apart for the treatment of 
 animals. It covered twenty-five acres, and was divided into 
 courts and wards for the accommodation of the dumb patients. 
 When an animal broke a limb, or was otherwise disabled, the 
 owner brought it to the hospital, where it was received without 
 regard to the caste or the nation of its master, and was treated 
 with the greatest care ; and, if need be, found a peaceful asylum 
 for the infirmities of oid age.J " If proper inquiry were directed 
 to this building," says Mr. Prinsep, " I daresay it would be dis- 
 covered to be a living example — the only one that has braved 
 twenty centuries — of the humane acts of Asoka, recorded at no 
 great distance on a rock in Guzerat." 
 
 Further investigation will doubtless bring to light many other 
 instances of this wise and compassionate edict of Asoka having 
 been put in force over the whole country ; for, quite recently, Major 
 Kittoe (1852) found, in the course of his excavations at Sarnath, 
 *' a large quadrangle or hospital, with pestles and mortars, &c." § 
 
 The great interest of these hospitals lies not only in the large- 
 hearted toleration which opened them "to the poor of all countries," 
 and in the liberality which supplied " help to all gratuitously," 
 first fruits of that noble-minded charity which knows no distinc- 
 tion of Tace or creed in the presence of suffering humanity, and 
 
 * Fa-Hian's Travels from China to India, Beal's transl., p. 107. 
 
 f Memoires sur les Contrees Occidentales, par Hiouen-Thsang, en 
 a.d. 648, translated by Stanislas Julien, ii. 231, 190 ; iii. 174, 215. Paris, 
 1857. 
 
 X Hamilton's East India Gazetteer. Surat is a very ancient town, for it 
 is mentioned in the Kamayana. Scavoneur, Voyages, ii. 489. 
 
 § Cunningham's Archl. Survey of India, i. 125. 
 
14 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 which found so tender an illustration in Christ's story of the 
 Good Samaritan, but also in the fact that these hospitals are an 
 evolution such as we might naturally expect from the teaching 
 of the religion of Buddha, which Asoka had adopted. The cen- 
 tral point round which all the ethics of Buddhism revolve — the 
 doctrine which imparts to it so great a vitality and strength — is 
 the law of self-sacrifice carried to the point of complete devotion, 
 so that a man should lay down his life for his fellow-men, and in 
 certain extreme cases for the lower animals. Moreover, the pro- 
 blem of existence which Buddha endeavoured to solve is the way 
 by which mankind may be saved from disease, decay, and death. 
 The life of the founder was in itself the highest ideal of his reli- 
 gion, for Buddha was manifested in the form of man because his 
 exceeding love moved him with compassion for the sons of men ; * 
 and he left the home of his reputed father to live among the poor 
 and wretched, in order that he might bring back those who have 
 wandered from the right way, that he might enlighten those who 
 are living in darkness and gloomy error, and that he might 
 remove from the world all sources of pain and suffering and 
 sorrow.f 
 
 (4.) On passing from the East to the extreme West, we find that 
 the ancient Mexicans had hospitals in the principal cities, " for the 
 cure of the sick, and for the permanent refuge of disabled soldiers." 
 Surgeons were placed over them, who were " so far better than 
 those in Europe," says the old chronicler Torquemada, " that they 
 did not protract the cure in order to increase the pay." J 
 
 This care for the sick and disabled might naturally be expected 
 from a people who were accustomed to hear the form of absolu- 
 tion which followed on the confession of their sins close with 
 the words : " Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, whatever priva- 
 tions it may cost thee ; for remember their flesh is like thine, and 
 they are men like thee ; " § and who worshipped God as " The 
 merciful and long-suffering, the enjoiner of charity." || 
 
 (5.) The history of medicine may be traced with tolerable clear- 
 ness in the Hebrew nation. 
 
 So long as diseases were regarded as the direct and special 
 acts of Jehovah,5T the priests, as His representatives, were the 
 physicians to afflict and to cure. The fame of King Solomon 
 as a physician still holds its place in the traditions of the 
 
 * Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, by Rev. S. Beal, p. 15. 
 + Romantic History of Buddha, Beal, p. 143. 
 J Prescott, History of Conquest of Mexico, i. 40. 
 § Ibid. || Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, ix. 179. 
 
 IT In Exod. xv. 26. Oarmoly translates, " L'Eternal est h mSdecin du 
 peuple." — Histoire des Mfidecins Juifs, Bruxelles, 1844. 
 
Pre-CIiristian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 15 
 
 East, and the Talmud assigns to him a "volume of cures." 
 After his time, when the priestly power declined before the 
 majesty of the prophetic, the influence which medical skill gives 
 among a rude people was eagerly grasped by the prophets, and 
 medicine was taught in their " schools." Their sacred scriptures 
 record that the prophets struck men with two of the most terrible 
 diseases of the nation, leprosy and blindness, and that they cured 
 the sick, and even raised the dead to life. At a prophet's word a 
 king's hand is withered as he stands before the altar surrounded 
 by his court ; at the same word the hand is restored to its former 
 strength. The .decline of the healing power among the priests is 
 probably marked by the chronicler's lament that King Asa, in his 
 disease, " sought not to Jehovah, but to the physicians." 
 
 On the return of the exiles from Babylon, the medical art 
 passed into the hands of the new power in the state — the scribes. 
 They raised the dignity of the physician to a high pinnacle, and 
 the knowledge of medicine became an essential qualification for 
 membership in the Great Sanhedrim : " Honour a physician with 
 the honour due unto him for the use which ye may have of him ; 
 for the Lord hath created him. ... He shall receive honour of 
 the King." * The art reached its fullest development among the 
 Essenes, a Jewish sect who lived an ascetic life, ruled by love to 
 God and man. They studied the sacred books for the service of 
 God, and medicine for the service of man. 
 
 The surgeon and the physician are treated as distinct func- 
 tionaries in the Mishna.j" We read of surgery in the Book of 
 the Prophet Ezekiel, and curiously enough in connection with 
 Egypt: "I have broken the arm of Pharaoh King of Egypt; it 
 shall not be bound up to be healed, to put a roller to bind it." { 
 Boilers to bind are used to this day. The apothecary's trade is 
 frequently mentioned; for instance, "The Lord hath created 
 medicines out of the earth ; . . . with such doth He heal men and 
 taketh away their pains; of such doth the apothecary make a 
 confection." § Josephus mentions female physiciau».|| 
 
 Physicians had from early times been a necessity to the nation. 
 Manetho's account of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt is, that they 
 were driven away by the king because they defiled the land with 
 their leprosy. This disease became so identified with the nation, 
 not only in their neighbours' eyes but in their own, that to the 
 
 * Ecclus. xxxviii. 1. 
 
 t R. J. Wunderbar, Biblisoh-Talmudische Medicin, Leipzig, 1865. 
 j Exod. xxx. 21. Nothing can exceed the skill with which the limbs of 
 the Egyptian mummies are bound. 
 
 § Ecclus. xxxviii. 4, 7, 8. || Vita, 37, v larphr), ed. Haverc. 
 
16 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 question asked in the Talmud, "What is the name of the 
 Messias ? " the answer is, " The Leper." * This singular identifi- 
 cation of the Messiah with the characteristic disease of the people 
 obtained a place among the Christian legends of the Middle 
 Ages. When, for instance, St. Francis d'Assissi dismounts from 
 his horse to succour a leper, he finds in the leper the Christ.-}- 
 This strange idea was probably founded on the Vulgate rendering 
 of Isaiah liii. 4, " Nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum." The cere- 
 monial observances which required the lepers to " show themselves 
 to the priest," assumes a knowledge of medicine in some officials 
 connected with the priestly order. Accordingly we find that 
 physicians were in later times attached not only to the temple but 
 also to the synagogues. They were elected, as were the Greek 
 state physicians, by the voice of the people, to whom they were 
 responsible.! The physicians in all times, whether priests, 
 prophets, or scribes, received fees § — in early times, " bread and 
 cakes and honey " from the poor, camel-loads of stuffs, with gold 
 and silver, from the rich ; in later times, " such things as were 
 commanded." 
 
 The contagious nature of leprosy required that the wretched 
 patients should dwell apart from the abodes of men ; so we read 
 of them herded together in miserable groups, prowling about the 
 outer gates of cities, or wandering over the country, always raising 
 their weird cry, " Unclean, unclean ! " and standing afar off when 
 they saw their fellow-men approaching. It is possible that houses 
 may have been erected for their accommodation outside the city 
 walls of some of the larger towns. Of one such house we read, 
 but as in the case of ancient Greece, of one only, the " several 
 house " into which King Uzziah retired when the " leprosy 
 mounted into his forehead," and the priests with indecent haste 
 thrust out from the sacred precincts of the temple the sorrow- 
 stricken leper, who himself " hasted to go out." Ewald, Gesenius, 
 and other great scholars, see in this "several house," or "house of 
 separation," or " free house," a hospital corresponding to the 
 leper hospitals of later times. It may have been in this house 
 of separation that some leper wrote the touching "Prayer of 
 Grievous Complaint," in which he cries aloud to Jehovah : "lam 
 counted with them that go down into the pit, free among the dead. 
 Lover and friend hast Thou put from me, Thou hast made me an 
 abomination unto them. I am shut up, I cannot come forth." || 
 
 * Pearson, Creed, iv. 266 n. f Stephen's Eocl. Biog., p. 64. 
 
 % Rev. A. L. Green's letter to "Jewish World," October 1875. 
 
 § In Exod. xxi. 9, the LXX. reads larpela. May not this word which, 
 as we have already seen, occurs in Plato, have reference to dispensaries, 
 similar to those with which the Seventy were familiar in Alexandria ? 
 
 II Ps. lxxxviii. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 17 
 
 Care for the sick, a characteristic of the Jews to this day, is 
 what we might look for in the nation whose sacred writings 
 inculcate as the highest religion love to God and love to man ; 
 and whose greatest rabbis taught, " Be not slow to visit the sick, 
 for that shall make thee to be beloved," * and raised the kindly 
 act towards the sick man to the dignity of a deed done to God, 
 for "the glory of God hovers over the couch of the sick." f 
 
 (6.) The elder Pliny tells us that for 600 years the Eomans had 
 shown a repugnance to the art of medicine, and he boasts that 
 medicine is the only one of the arts of Greece which Eomans 
 refuse to cultivate. It was on this account, he says, that the temple 
 of iEsculapius was built, in the first instance, outside the city walls, 
 and was afterwards removed to an island in the Tiber. Plutarch 
 revenges himself by saying that the temple was built in imitation 
 of the famous temple at Epidaurus, which was situated at a dis- 
 tance of five miles from the city for the sake of the fresh air and 
 change of scene. 
 
 Pliny is probably correct in stating that in the earlier days of 
 the Eepublic physicians were unknown, and that for some time 
 afterwards they were confined to foreigners, chiefly Greeks % and 
 Egyptians, and to slaves. The first physician who came from 
 Greece to Eome, in 219 B.C., had a surgery {taberna) provided 
 for him at the public cost, at the Acilian crossway ; the Eomans 
 called him Vulnerarius, the wound-curer; but he hacked and 
 cauterized his patients so mercilessly, that his name was changed 
 to Carni/ex, the executioner. § Cato hated the Greek physicians 
 because they spoke of the Eomans as " barbarians " and " clod- 
 hoppers ; " and he became possessed with the idea that they 
 meant to poison the Eomans wholesale with their drugs. The 
 use of Latin by physicians in our day in their prescriptions may 
 be a survival of the idea, which is by no means confined to 
 Pliny's time, that " people lose confidence in that which is 
 intelligible to them ; " for, as he says, even the few Eomans who 
 studied medicine thought it necessary to write their prescriptions 
 in Greek, for " if they should attempt to treat of the disease in 
 any other language, they will certainly lose all credit, even with 
 the ignorant who do not know a word of Greek." Slaves skilled 
 in medicine were attached to all the great houses, and Justinian 
 allows the maximum price of sixty gold pieces to be paid for 
 both male and female. || 
 
 Pliny accuses the physicians of extreme avarice. Indeed, their 
 
 * Ecclus. vii. 35. t Tulmud. 
 
 J Nat. Hist, xxix. The oculists, whose names we find on their seals, 
 were most of them of Greek origin.— TeufM, Hist. Rom. Lit., i. 45. 
 § Nat. Hist., xxix. 6. || Code, vii. 7, 1, 5. 
 
18 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 gains were so large, that skilled artisans — bootmakers, carpenters, 
 tanners, and even gravediggers — became doctors, and unsuccessful 
 doctors sank back into the humbler trades. 
 
 " Nuper erat medicus, nunc est vespillo Diaulus. 
 Quod vespillo facit, fecerat et medicus." * 
 
 Their charlatanism, bad manners, and ignorance were so great, 
 that Galen says the greater part of them could read only with 
 difficulty, and he counsels his colleagues to be on their guard lest 
 they should make grammatical blunders when conversing with 
 their patients ; and he moreover complains that at the bedside of 
 the patient the rival doctors so far forget themselves that they 
 abuse each other, put out their tongues, and even come to blows, t 
 Pliny laments that there is no law to punish their ignorance, and 
 he chuckles over the well-known epitaph, " Turba medicorum 
 perii." Under those circumstances, one is not surprised to find 
 ex votos of arms and legs, ears and eyes, and tablets commemora- 
 tive of successful dreams, adorning the temples both at Rome and 
 in the provinces. One tablet reminds us of the story of the cure 
 of the young Egyptian princess by the god after the failure of the 
 physicians ; it is the tablet of a blind slave at Rome to Minerva 
 Medica, the '•' good goddess," for the restoration of sight : " After 
 he had been given up by the physicians, he was cured by the 
 grace of our lady and the use of her medicines." J It was this 
 superstitious element which caused the miraculous cures of the 
 Emperor Vespasian at Alexandria to be attested by many among 
 the great multitude who beheld them, even after the Flavian line 
 had become extinct, and nothing was to be gained by falsehood^ 
 
 Physicians and surgeons followed each their own functions ; 
 and we read of specialists, oculists, dentists, aurists (auricularii), 
 &c. ; there were court physicians, among whom we read of one 
 who was above the others (supra medicos) ; and women (medicce) 
 were employed for diseases of women and children. 
 
 In the time of the Antonines we read of a " chief of the 
 physicians," dp^ia.Tj0O9.[| Archiatri popular es were provided for 
 every city according to its size ; they formed a College of 
 Physicians, and seem to have held a sort of examination of 
 persons qualified to practise. They were elected by a vote of the 
 citizens, and received a salary from the public treasury. They 
 were required to treat all the sick who came to them free of 
 charge, but they were appointed primarily for the sake of the poor.1T 
 
 * Martial. t Com. in Hipp. iv. 9, quoted by Friedlander. 
 
 t Friedlander, iv. 235-241. § Tacitus, Hist,, iv. 81. 
 
 [| A title which St. Jerome applies to Christ, Horn, in St. Luc, xiii. 
 IT Dumas, Des Secours Publics en usage cliez les Anciens, p. 136, Paris, 
 1813. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 10 
 
 It is, however, at Epidaurus that we find a house which was one 
 of the noblest expressions of the tender feeling and gentle sympathy 
 with suffering humanity which in the second and third centuries 
 of our era were becoming such marked characteristics of the culti- 
 vated Roman gentleman. Many cultured Romans took the same 
 tour as that described by Livy : iEmilius Paulus went to Athens, 
 " filled with the decayed relics of ancient grandeur ; " thence to 
 Corinth, with its beautiful views and busy modern life ; and thence 
 to Epidaurus, famous for its temple of iEsculapius, " then rich in 
 offerings, which the wealthy had dedicated to the Deity in acknow- 
 ledgment of the remedies which had restored them to health, but 
 now" he adds sorrowfully, " filled only with their traces, showing 
 whence they have been torn away." * As the tourist of the time 
 of the Antonines approached the walls which surrounded the 
 temple, the sacred grove, and the massive buildings (whose ruined 
 mounds to this day attest their former magnificence t), he would 
 see a house built before the entrance to the gate to shelter the 
 aged, and the delicate women, who were forbidden to tarry with- 
 in, lest the sacred precincts should be defiled by those who were 
 entering and by those who were leaving life. That house had 
 been erected by the Emperor Antoninus, who won from the 
 Roman Senate and people that most touching of all the titles"' 
 of antiquity, The Pius.J 
 
 (7.) We read of military surgeons as early as the time of 
 Homer. "In those days," says Plato, "the sons of Asclepius 
 were heroes as well as physicians ; for when the arrow of Pan- 
 darus wounded Menelaus, they sucked the blood out of his 
 wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies (II. iv. 218) : these 
 remedies they thought to be enough to heal any man whose con- 
 stitution was healthy and sound." § The state physicians of 
 Egypt were forbidden to take fees when attached to the army 
 in time of war. || Cyrus employed surgeons to march with his 
 army ; so did the Spartans. Among the Romans, soldiers dressed 
 each other's wounds until the time of Augustus, when we first 
 hear of military surgeons. The German wives and mothers " did 
 not fear to search for and to count the gashes " of the wounded 
 heroes whom they had accompanied to the battle.lj 
 
 * Lib. lxv. 27, 28. 
 
 t The sacred character is preserved in its name of Hieron, the sanc- 
 tuary ; and the village is called Koroni, evidently from Koronis, the mother 
 of Asclepius. 
 
 % Pausanias, ii» 27. Champagny, Les Antonins, torn. ii. p. 183. 
 
 § Rep., iii. 406. 
 
 || Diod., i. 82. In the smaller temple at Aboo Simbel, in Nubia, a 
 surgeon is seen dressing a wound in the foot of a soldier. — Edwards, A 
 Thousand Miles up the Nile, p. 438. 
 
 IT Tacitus, Germ., 7. 
 
20 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 It is not, however, until the reign of Hadrian that we find the 
 military hospital, which is called valetudinarium. It was under 
 the control of the Prefect of the camp, whose duty it was to see 
 that the surgeons visited their patients.* These valetudinaria 
 were always attached to the winter quarters, and those generals 
 who visit the sick and wounded are applauded.! 
 
 We have already seen that the ancient Mexicans had hospitals 
 for the care of the sick, and as a refuge for disabled soldiers, 
 institutions which may have foreshadowed our Chelsea Hospital 
 and Les Invalides at Paris. 
 
 The most remarkable instance of a military hospital was one in 
 Ireland. The palace of Emania was founded about 300 B.C. by 
 the Princess Macha of the Golden Hair, and continued to be the 
 chief royal residence of Ulster until 332 A.D., when it was 
 destroyed. To this palace were attached two houses, — one the 
 house in which the Red Branch Knights hung up their arms and 
 trophies ; the other, in which the sick were cared for and the 
 wounded healed ; this latter was called by the expressive name, 
 Broin Bearg, the House of Sorrow.f The institution of the 
 House of Sorrow spread through Ireland under the influence of 
 Christianity, and the ancient Laws sanction the right of distress 
 to provide for the sick " a physician, food, proper bed-furniture, 
 and a proper house.% 
 
 (8.) Such was the progress made by some of the great nations in 
 the noble effort to ameliorate the condition of the sick and suffer- 
 ing, when, towards the close of the fourth century after Christ, 
 Christianity inspired the world with the enthusiasm of humanity. 
 A noble Eoman lady, Fabiola, devoted her princely patrimony to 
 build, in a salubrious quarter near the city, a house for the recep- 
 tion of the sick and the infirm who were found homeless and 
 without shelter in the streets. This, says St. Jerome, was the 
 first voa-oKOfnelov.W The fame of this institution spread through- 
 out the Eoman Empire, " from the Egyptians and the Parthians to 
 the isles of Britain." The work was carried on by St. Basil, who 
 built outside the walls of Csesarea in Cappadocia, probably on the 
 site of an earlier hospital,!! the massive pile of buildings which, 
 says St. Gregory Nazianzen, " rose to view like a second city, the 
 abode of charity, the treasury into which the rich poured of their 
 wealth and the poor of their poverty. Here disease is investigated 
 
 * PI. Vegetius, De re Milit., ii. 10. 
 t Dumas, Des Secours Publics, iv. 1. t 
 
 J Sir W. Wilde, Note on Census for Ireland, Part hi., Pari. Papers 
 1854, vol. lviii. 
 § Sanchus Mor, p. 123, Dublin, Thorn, 1865. 
 || Ep. 77, c. 6 ("prima omnium voaoKoiieiov instituit"). 
 If See Ep. 94, ad Heliam. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 21 
 
 (<j)i\ocro(f)eiTai) and sympathy proved." No building of antiquity 
 seemed to him to equal this hospital, not even " Thebes with its 
 hundred gates, nor the walls of Babylon, 7ior the pyramids of 
 Egypt, nor the Colossus of Rhodes, nor the tomb of Mausoleus." 
 " My brother's hospital, he says, is a tabernacle of witness to the 
 world, like unto that of Moses." * 
 
 St. John Chrysostom found at least one hospital already exist- 
 ing when he went to Constantinople, and he built many more on 
 the plan of the Basilias. We may form some idea of the number 
 of hospitals at Alexandria from a law of Honorius which men- 
 tions no less than six hundred nurses, parabolani,f who were 
 placed at the disposal of the bishop for the nursing of the sick — 
 " ad curanda debilium segra corpora." 
 
 Noble ladies like Fabiola gave themselves up to the work of 
 nursing the sick. The Empress Placilla visited the sick in their 
 own homes and in the public hospitals, she stood at the bedside, 
 she tasted the broth, handed the food, washed the cups, and per- 
 formed other offices with her own hands, such as the meanest 
 servants ordinarily did.j The aged Bishop of Carthage, Deogra- 
 tias, having sold the churcli-plate to ransom the captive Chris- 
 tians, lodged them in two large churches, and every hour by night 
 and day he visited them, with the physicians, and went from bed 
 to bed to know of what each stood most in need.§ In the great 
 plague at Alexandria (a.d. 260-268) many of the brethren nursed 
 the sick in the height of the disease ; they saved many by their 
 care, who rose from their beds to life, while they themselves fell 
 struck by the plague unto the death : " They saved others, them- 
 selves they could not save." || This work of the Christians excited 
 the emulation of the Emperor Julian : " These impious Galileans 
 give themselves to this kind of humanity ; " and although he 
 thought their motive base,1T yet he orders Arsacius to "esta- 
 blish abundance of hospitals in every city, that our kindness 
 may be enjoyed by strangers, not only of our own people but of 
 those who are in need." ** 
 
 To the great hospital at Csesarea there was attached a "house 
 of separation " for the lepers, of whose wretched condition St. 
 Gregory of Nyssa gives such an appalling account. They wandered 
 in troops over Cappadocia in search of food, and exposed to the 
 inclemency of the seasons. They resembled corpses before death. 
 
 * Orat. 20, ed. Colon. 
 
 f Cod. Just., i. 3, 18. Strictly speaking, nurses in infectious diseases, 
 for they cast themselves into hazard of their lives with a recklessness 
 which is divine. 
 
 J Theod., Hist. Eccl., v. 18. § Victor. Utic, De Pers. Vand. 
 
 || Euseb., Hist. Eccl., vii. 22. Cave, Primitive Christiauity, III. ii. 390. 
 
 1 Frag. 305, Rheinwald, Kirchliche Archaologie. ** Epist., 49. 
 
22 Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 
 
 Clothed in rags, supported by a staff fastened with a string, not 
 to the hands, which had been eaten away by disease, but to the 
 stumps of the arms which were left, driven from the towns and 
 the assemblies of men, tracked as hunters track wild beasts, they 
 did not dare even to approach the wells and fountains on the 
 roadside to quench their burning thirst. " Basil it was who per- 
 suaded men not to scorn men, nor to dishonour Christ the Head 
 of all by their inhumanity towards human beings." * 
 
 Most if not all of these early Christian institutions were 
 hospices as well as hospitals — the home of the stranger no less 
 than the home of the sick. It is interesting to note the difficulty 
 of finding a word to express these new buildings. St. Jerome 
 uses a Greek word, vocroKofieiov, for the house built by the gentle 
 lady who herself cared for the sick whom she received. St. Basil 
 evidently felt a difficulty in finding a name for his institution. In 
 one letter he speaks of it as the support of the poor, 7rr(0)(OTpo(p- 
 eioz>,f in another as a place of lodging, icaTayayy.iov,X open 
 to strangers passing through the country, and to those who need 
 (Oepaireia'i) peculiar treatment by reason of the state of their 
 health ; while Sozomen falls back upon its popular name, Basi- 
 leas, " that most famous lodging for the poor founded by Basil, 
 from whom it received the appellation which it still retains." § 
 It was reserved for later times to take one of the most sacred ideas 
 of ancient days, hospitality, and inspiring it with the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity to enshrine it for future ages in the home which is open to 
 all who are suffering from sickness and from pain : " Go out into 
 the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and 
 the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, . . . that my house may 
 be filled." 
 
 Thus we see that the glory of Christianity does not lie in having 
 originated the idea of hospitals, but in having seized it, like the 
 runners the torch in the ancient games, and carried it forward 
 with brighter flame and more intense enthusiasm. The fame of 
 Fabiola and St. Basil has been immortalised by St. Jerome and the 
 Gregorys ; the edict of Asoka is graven with a pen of iron in the 
 rock, a living witness to the noble thoughts of his kingly mind ; 
 the House of Sorrow, which was built within the ancient rath 
 that exists to this day, speaks of the tenderness of the Princess 
 Macha ; but no trace remains of the names and titles of the men 
 and women who built the solitary hospital on the sea-shore in the 
 Piraeus, who founded the house-of-separation for the lepers in 
 Judaea, and the home for the disabled soldiers in Mexico ; or of 
 
 • A. Tollemer, Des Origines de la Charit6 Catholique, Paris, 1863. 
 Martin-Doisy, Histoire de la Charite, Paris, 1848. 
 ' t Ep. 176. t Ep. 94. § Hist. Eccl., vi. 34. 
 
Pre-Christian Dispensaries and Hospitals. 23 
 
 those, even more illustrious, who in ancient Egypt conceived the 
 idea of the physician paid by the state to tend the poor — an idea 
 which contains the germ that has borne^ fruit in the vast net- 
 work of hospitals which are rapidly spreading over the continents 
 of Europe and America. Their names may be forgotten, but 
 their deeds are immortal ; they have joined 
 
 " That choir invisible 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world." 
 
 A Jewish legend, preserved in the Haggadah, tells us that 
 Abraham wore upon his breast a jewel " whose light raised those 
 who were bowed down and healed the sick ; " and that when he died, 
 it was placed in heaven where it shone among the stars. Count- 
 less as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the sea-shore are 
 the men and women of all countries and of all creeds who have 
 worn next their heart the patriarch's jewel of light. 
 
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