Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/167

 tions of Christian humanity are fixed with equal assurance that each has found the truth. In its library of over two thousand sutras, one of which, translated into Chinese, is twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible, every searcher after the great verity may find materials to construct a creed according to the pattern of his own intellectual and emotional nature, and none can confidently assert that upon him alone the light of inspiration has shone, for none dare pretend to imagine that his researches have been exhaustive. It is here that an explanation may be found of the tranquil tolerance amid which the various sects of Buddhism have been evolved. It is here, too, that the faith attracts special interest, for, by inviting eclecticism, it becomes a mirror of its interpreter's mind. In each vessel of water drawn from the well where Buddhist truth lies so profoundly buried, a reflection may be seen of the drawer's moral features, and it follows that were it possible to trace accurately the developments received by Buddhism and the changes it has undergone during the twelve hundred years of its active existence in Japan, the student would find himself looking very closely at the genius of the Japanese people and at the guiding spirit of their civilisation.