The quality of the minds that commend this movement is one of the presumptions in its favour. It is sometimes urged that there is no general consensus of womanly opinion on its side; but allowing that it is a minority which makes this claim for itself or others, it is one which includes, with few exceptions, all the highest intellect, the deepest sensibility, and the most awakened conscience of the time. The plea that the "best women" are unfavourable to it, generally advanced by those to whom it is likely that the "best" would be unknown, cannot stand for a moment before the open facts.

There are those who will tell us that the spinsters for whom a vote is claimed, are inferior to the married women who must forego it, the latter being a "selected class." Truly the secret of rejected sisters must have been honourably kept for grown men to believe that the often brilliant and attractive single women are such because they have been overlooked. Be this as it may, the spinsters and widows are the freest of the sex, and as such its most fitting representatives. It may seem strange and discouraging to some that a matter so clear to reason and justice, as that all who labour and suffer should have equal protection of the State, remains in this advanced age of the world still a subject for debate, and that legal disqualifications, such as press upon women, should even now be borne patiently by any number of them. In reality the causes of such acquiescence are not far to seek. It is a rare, perhaps even an unknown, thing for a class upon which opinion and custom have weighed heavily to seek with any unanimity to emancipate itself. Doctrines of duty, considerations of what is shown to be the natural fitness of things, are rained upon it from without; and the suggestions of physical weakness, and the self-distrust incident to a condition of tutelage, attack it from within. To these, in the case of women, is superadded the keen desire for sympathy and approval, together with the instinct of sacrifice. Nor can it be left out of the account, in contemplating the condition of Englishwomen-those who may be supposed to share the instincts of freedom with their fathers, husbands, and sonsthat, brutal wife-beaters and outworn laws notwithstanding, the general tone of feeling towards the sex in this country may compare favourably with that at present existing among any other people. But for the individual fairness and consideration which has circumscribed the effect of cruel laws, the reproach of a legal system more backward in this relation than any other in the European polity, would probably long since have past from us.

There is something in that attitude of hostility to their natural protectors forced upon the more advanced female intelligence of our time, which is strange, even repugnant, and would be exquisitely painful, but for the conviction that it is a passing dissonance preparing the way for the completer harmony of the

future. Women who feel for women are smarting under a sense of the injustice done them, and the men who oppose their demands are irritated by the lack of reason on their own side, and ashamed of the fears which they nevertheless suffer to overmaster them.

But, happily for all parties, the antagonism regretted is far from being wholly one of sex. The women in the van are no more in opposition to men than they are admittedly so to the careless or selfdistrustful of their own kind. There have never been wanting, since the commencement of the movement, generous souls outside the ranks of the oppressed, who have pointed out the baseness of acquiescence in wrong, and directed unaccustomed steps into the more perfect way. Of these champions we have lately lost one whose name alone must inspire respect for any cause with which it is associated; but he has left many gallant brothers in arms, disinterested and chivalrous men, willing to risk themselves in a cause which, for the moment, offers no pay, opens no prospect to the place and preferment for which men are accustomed to strive, but whose names, nevertheless, may be expected to shine in the light of the day that is breaking.

Of the male opponents of female enfranchisement, not all are of the class who look down upon their claims. There are some who affect to regard, possibly do sincerely regard, women as elevated by their sex to a position too dainty and delicate for the rude contact of politics.

To those kindly-intentioned gentlemen, the nineteenth-century Paladins who are willing to fight women's battles and leave them queens of the tournament, to reward success with their smiles, I would invite reflection to the fact that, in this crowded and struggling society where most men are contending for dear life, the women in the hurly-burly are, alas! many, and the Paladins will ever be few. It would indeed be a miracle if that small though gallant company should hold its own and ours against the army of disputants whose needs become daily more pressing, and who have been educated to consider that they as men have a prescriptive right to the first and the best of everything that is going in the world. Under circumstances of such increasing exigence, "favour is deceitful," and even "beauty is vain," while at all times, in view of the possible absence of either, and with knowledge of the egoism and imperfection of human nature, it is better to be under the law than under grace. As women, we cannot, we ought not to forget, that it is not yet a quarter of a century since the earnings of a deserted wife and mother have been secured to her; that even now the protection the weaker sex receives from brutal violence is disgracefully inadequate; and worse, far worse than all, that a married woman, without fault of her own, is liable to be despoiled of her children.

What is needed is, that representatives of constituencies should feel that they had, to a certain extent, to reckon directly with their female electors, and that to the same extent they could suffer from the neglect of their affairs. Their limited claim for the Parliamentary vote, existing only in the air, acting only potentially on the minds of men, has already done women more service than ages of volunteer championship.

Let me say in conclusion that there must ever be room for the tenderest gallantry on the part of those who are pleased to render homage to weakness. It is not in the restrictions of custom that womanhood is worthy of gentle thought; it is that Nature has selected her for the most sacred service, and has made and will maintain her tender and true for its performance. It is not because her development has been hampered and her action crippled, that she is entitled to help and sympathy; it is that whatever may be her strength, that strength is heavily burthened by the charge that is laid upon her by Nature. It is not when her views are narrowed, and the sources of her interest restrained, that she is most entitled to the influence which sentimentalists are threatening her with losing; but rather when possibilities of freer action have elevated to a still higher plane the affections which specially distinguish her. We all know too well that reason has only a limited sway, but it is to the interest of both sexes that its borders should increase. The world is in want of more women after the perfected type, and would be the better for fewer "Sirens."

I feel that apology is due to the noble womanhood of our own day, to the faithful and progressive womanhood of all time, for the humility of the position I have sometimes taken in advocating this cause. But if, in despite of proof, there are still men who persist in viewing all women as feeble and foolish, there is nothing to be gained by indignant denial; no arguing with blindness or fear. It is enough that want of faith, want of hope, and want of charity, are negative values little likely to prevail against the vital forces which are ever more and more actively operative in completing the work of life.

But it is not of the future-of which we have no doubt it is of the present, that those who have this cause at heart, are now thinking. We would so willingly hasten its fruition. Much must depend on

opportunity. Will Mr. Woodall's motion have a chance of coming before Parliament again this Session, or will it, according to immemorial order, be pushed out of the way at the bidding of any, the most trivial, matter which has superior interest for the ruling powers? If it be so in the present disposition of affairs, it will furnish us with a final and eloquent appeal in support of the claim that has brooked such discourtesy.

EMILY PFEIFFER.

CONTEMPORARY RECORDS.

I.-HISTORY OF RELIGIONS.

N no department of literature has there of late been greater results been obtained. There are many workers in the field, students of old and new, of savage and historical religions; and many more who, from sociological, philosophical, or religious points of view, are interested in their discussions and watchful of their researches. Buddhism is for many reasons the religion that has attracted most attention, not simply because of its remarkable character and diffusion, but because of the many problems in comparative historical, literary, philosophical, and religious criticism it involves. Of all the Eastern religions it is the one that seems at first sight most alien to the spirit of the West; yet it is the one that has awakened here the most deep and distinct echo. Our contemporary Pessimism not only owed its inception and earliest form to Buddhism, but owes to it to-day most of its vitality, and much of its right to consideration and criticism. The similarities of its political organization or constitution, its ritual, observances, ethical and social ideals, with those distinctive of Roman Catholicism, open a large field at once of comparison and inquiry; of comparison as to the history of similar institutions and ideas, working under dissimilar conditions; of inquiry as to the rise and relations and action of kindred ideas and customs. But of much greater scientific significance than its relation to our speculative Pessimism on the one hand, and its institutional and ceremonial affinities with Catholicism on the other, are the questions connected with its origin, history, and interpretation. It cannot be understood unless studied as a chapter in the history of Hindu religious thought; but its history cannot be written unless it be followed into the countries into which it has penetrated, and where it still lives. Buddhism is quite as lineal a descendant of the Vedic Age, its later speculations and social conditions, as Brahmanism, and only as its descent is traced can its genesis be explained, or its character and meaning be interpreted. This has been in various ways becoming more evident to scholars; the nearer they have got to primitive Buddhism the more they have seen its organic connection with the past,

the religious thought and customs, the social and political conditions that preceded it. Buddhism was to older scholars, like Hodgson and Burnouf, in its rise a revolution, but it is to later ones a development; yet these are not contradictory ideas; they only imply a difference of standpoint, due indeed to new and more primitive sources of knowledge. Development becomes revolution when neglected principles or overshadowed customs and institutions are emphasized to the contradiction or supersession of the system that caused the neglect or cast the shadow. In the history of religion in India, Buddhism is, viewed in relation to the antecedent historical conditions, a development; but viewed in relation to the historical consequences, a revolution.

Of recent books dealing with Buddha and the origin of Buddhism, the two most important are those of Oldenberg and Kern. † These works have, amid many radical differences, one point in common; they both believe that Buddhism must be explained through the course and conditions of religious thought and life in India, prior to and at the time of its appearance. Oldenberg says: "Buddhism has acquired, as an inheritance from Brahmanism, not merely a series of its most important dogmas, but, what is not less significant to the historian, the bent of its religious thought and feeling" (p. 53). Kern declares still more decisively, "Buddhism is rooted in antiquity, and is nothing else than a variety of an Indo-Aryan plant," which, "naturally and genetically classified, is and remains a species of Hinduism" (p. 281, vol. i.). And again: Buddha's "doctrine differed little from that of his contemporaries, especially as we find it in the Upanishads" (p. 2, vol. i.). This is important for the interpretation of the system. While we find its oldest form in the Pâli books, we must use the still older Sanskrit literature and Brahmanical customs and institutions, as supplying standpoints, and, as it were, rudimentary or grammatical material for the interpreter. In other words, while the system to be studied is preserved in the Pâli scriptures, the student must come to their interpretation through the Vedic and Brahmanical literature, reading the later in the light of the earlier, which is here, in truth, the more luminous. But, while both writers agree as to the real and organic character of the historical relation, they differ radically in their view of its nature to Oldenberg it is intellectual and institutional, but to Kern mythological. The former seeks to trace the antecedents of Buddhism in the older Brahmanical thought, institutions, and customs; but the latter seeks to explain it as a transfigured mythology. This does not involve the position that the religion had no historical founder, or that in the story of his life there are no elements of historical reality; but it requires that the Buddha legend and the primitive and cardinal doctrines of the religion be alike translated in the terms of the Solar myth. This Professor Kern is quite prepared to do; he holds the legend to be "one of the most important chapters in comparative Aryan mythology" (p. 242, vol. i.). "In the mythical sense Buddha is the arisen light, the beginning of the day, of the year; personally considered, he is the creator. He is the beginning and source of the

"Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order." By Dr. Hermann Oldenberg. Translated from the German by William Hoey, M.A., D.Lit. London: Williams Norgate.

+"Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indië.", Voor Dr. H. Kern. D. Tjeenk Willink. 2 vols.