throughout the week. The formal reverence of the liturgies is giving way to the vital reverence of work and contemplation.

In fact the idea of reverence as an attiude is being overhauled. Reverence is growing into active creative anticipation. That is to say, reverence for childhood becomes the service of children. Rever.. ence for beauty becomes the service of the beautiful. Reverence for truth becomes loyalty to true things. Passive worship is valid only when resulting in positive activity.

(3) The idea of salvation is coming to include society as well as individuals. Buddha left his wife and children in pursuit of personal salvation. Jesus refrained from assuming the responsibilities of a household. Ascetics innumerable have left society to find God in various places of seclusion. Fundamentalists still urge that religion has little or no social responsibility, that in his own good time and in his own way God will take care of the world.

But most of the great churches now have active departments of Social Relations. Many of the prominent leaders of the great denominations believe strongly in the need for social redemption. Consider the prophetic work of Walter Rauschenbusch, Francis Peabody, Harry Ward, George A. Coe, and others.

Well may evil doers insist that the church has no business in civic affairs, for when an enlightened church once goes in for civic righteousness then will evil doers have met their first real organized opposition.

(a) The world needs material salvation. Bread, clothing. shelter and cultural interests are fundamental in civilized life; and any social arrangement that increases the difficulty with which these values are attained is an ally of savagery. You cannot build civilization if hunger and nakedness and exposure to the cold blasts of winter constantly haunt the populace. It is a part of the business of religion to see that goods are honestly made, abundantly supplied, and economically distributed.

At a gas station I had presented a small bill in payment for oil when a little negro boy standing by opened his eyes in painful wonder and said, "My ain't some people rich." The eyes wandered off as if attending to nothing in particular and he added in an undertone as a sort of after thought, "Some people don't never be rich." I am prepared to say that it is the business of religion to make it impossible for the wail of poverty to ascend from the soul of a single child.

(b) The world needs political salvation. It would not be seemly for me to go beyond Chicago in pursuit of examples of political corruption, although no doubt such a pursuit would meet with success. There is ample political unrighteousness in Chicago to satisfy the most voracious reformer. Graft, murder, arson, bombing are frequent. Places of official responsibility seem to be subject to the influence of ordinary thugs and gunmen. The school system is victimized. And local policies are based on personal antipathies to King George. What could be more religious than a program of civic well-being in Chicago or in any other complex community?

There are international issues pressing for settlement. Debts, land laws, boundary lines, the wrongs done enslaved peoples are threatening to embroil the nations. The international situation needs religious attention and religious leaders are turning themselves in that direction, as evidenced by the extensive preparations now being made for a universal religious Peace Conference to be held in 1930. What could be more religious than the promotion of pacific and intelligent and just international relations?

(4) The idea of the natural is coming to include all the operations of life or being, here or beyond, here, now or beyond now. It was impossible to get very far with a satisfactory world view so long as the natural and supernatural were constantly clashing. A natural situation was likely to be bombed at any time by a supernatural explosive. Miracles were final proofs of the validity of the gospels. But miracles, together with the whole idea of the supernatural are passing into the limbo of magic and allied ideology. Religion is coming to be understood as the most natural thing in world. Whatever else religion may be it is the natural functioning of a normal person in the effort to achieve a full and free and socially useful life in ordinary circumstances. Growth in spiritual stature is as normal as growth in physical stature; in fact physical wellbeing and all things that go into its makeup are religiously valid.

Now obviously, religion as it is understood by liberals and as it is rapidly coming to be understood by others, is destined to wield an even greater force in human affairs. Like art, religion may free itself from institutions; like science, it may consciously plan its remaking; like philosophy, it may devote time to speculative interests; like governments it may try new social relationships. And in and through these phases of life and many others religion will grow greater through the years.

So life is coming to be viewed as a high venture in religion and religion as a large venture in life. Some lack faith in life and fall by the way; others depend upon ecclesiastical trapping and are mere camp followers of the elect; but happily there is an increasing host of those who march out under the wide open with banners of liberty and fraternity flung to the breeze, and to these religion is the supreme adventure.

It might even be that John on the Isle of Patmos was more prophetic than some have supposed when upon visioning the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, he said, "There was no temple therein." While I personally love the beauty of a temple and believe in organization as an essential form of life, I would not forget that religion is essentially free from the fortunes of temples and altars and crosses and holy places. Wherever is found nobility of aspiration or achievement, there is religion pure and undefiled.

LEGENDS CONCERNING THE BIRTH OF THE BUDDHA

IN NON-CANONICAL LITERATURE

BY HOWARD W. OUTERBRIDGE

F the accounts of the birth and early career of Sakyamuni are somewhat meager and disappointing in the Canonical books of the Pali scriptures, this lack is well made up when we come to the Sanscrit writings. Here there is a wealth of detail and vivid description which makes the stories most interesting. That they are far removed from the realm of history is also amply evident. Not only is the Buddha a prehistoric being whose incarnation is attended by signs and miracles, but the events which take place among the spirits in the unseen Tushita heaven are also described in detailed and vivid language.

It will be impossible to outline all the elements which these various stories contain. We must content ourselves with mentioning a few of the more outstanding legends which seem to be more or less common to the various Buddhist countries. We will follow the general plan of considering the most important works which have been translated into English, and which are probably the most representative types of the Buddhist teachings on the subject, that have come down to us. We give below a list of those which contain the most biographical material, with the approximate dates of their authorship.

1. Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E., XXXV-VI). 100 B. C.200 A. D.

2. Lalita Vistara. (Translated by Mitra) C. 1st century A. D. 3. Buddha Charita. (S. B. E. XLIX) C. 1st century A. D. 4. Fo. Sho Hing Tsan King. (S. B. E. XIX) Chinese translation of Buddha Char.

5. Fo. Pen Hing Tsi King. (Romantic Hist. of Buddha. Beal) c. 1st century.

6. Jataka Tales Introduction. (Fausboll, trans. by R. Davids)

c. 5th century.

7. Thibetan Vinaya. (Rockhill's Life of Buddha) Date uncertain. but late.

8. Jina Charita, perhaps 12th century.

9. Malalankara Watthu, (The Legend of the Burmese Buddha, translated by Bigandet) Perhaps the 15th century.

This list does not by any means exhaust the material, but will probably be sufficient for practical purposes, and will give us an idea as to how far the imaginations of Buddhist scholars have run in the process of apothesis.

1. THE INVESTIGATIONS OR REFLECTIONS ON BIRTH.

It is interesting to find that in many of the legends of Buddha, there is a story to the effect that in his pre-existent state he actually investigated the various possibilities as to the time, place and manner of his birth, and made the choice of those conditions which seemed to him most suitable. The story takes different forms in the different traditions, but the general purport is the same.

While there is an unsolved problem as to the date of the various scriptures, the most original form of the story seems to be that which we find in the work known as the Questions of King Milinda (or Meander) where certain problems, which were probably practical problems to the devout Buddhist of the early Mahayana period, are taken up and discussed, in the form of a dialogue between King Milinda and a Buddhist teacher named Nagensa. The teacher quotes the Blessed One as the authority for his statements, claiming that he was taught these things in the Dhammata-dhammapariyaye, or Discourse on Essential Conditions, a work which Rhys Davids, the greatest authority on the Pali Scriptures says he has been unable to find. While it is always possible that such a work really existed, and may yet come to light, it seems more probable that we have here an attempt to sanctify with the authority of the Master, a saying which had its origin in a later period, and was in consequence not included in the Pali Canon. The quotation is as follows:

"Long ago have his parents been destined for each Bodhisat, and the kind of tree he is to select for his Bo tree, and the Bhikkus who are to be his chief disciples, and the lad who is to be his son, and