INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

...satisfaction of those legitimate desires of the human soul for which the "Communion of Saints" is the Christian answer.

(10). Ordinary Buddhism knows nothing of the forgiveness of sins. The great law of Karma the principle of cause and effect where a person's actions determine their future state which it preaches precludes this possibility. Every good deed brings its suitable reward, and if a man has—whether voluntarily or not—done what is bad, he must go on eating the bitter fruits until the entire crop is exhausted.

But there is one kind of Buddhism very popular in Japan, known as the cult of Amida, which practically admits the doctrine of forgiveness.

According to the sects which worship Amida (Jōdo and Shinshū two major branches of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism), the Buddha Amitâbha or Amitâyus original: "the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life", having attained Almighty Power by virtue of his own merits and holiness, looked down with compassion on his unhappy fellow mortals who were struggling hopelessly to overcome Karma by their own deeds. He therefore made a Vow to provide mankind with a way of salvation that is open to all, and offered on more generous terms than the steep, uphill road of salvation achieved through one's own exertions.

He therefore established a Paradise of his own and decreed that whoever—man, woman, or child—should invoke his sacred name with faith in his mercy and power, would be given the power to be born again in that Paradise. There, freed from all the obstacles that hinder a person's road to bliss, they would attain at once the perfection which they would otherwise strive after so long and so hopelessly.

We have, therefore, in Buddhism two methods of salvation: the gate of salvation by one's own works (jiriki-mon original: "self-power gate") and the gate of salvation by faith in the works of another (tariki-mon original: "other-power gate"). In this latter system, the forgiveness of sins is silently implied, for salvation is impossible without forgiveness.

When it can be shown that just as Amida and Christ represent the same idea of salvation by means of an Atone—