" With reference to charge one, he may be asked
why our Sakyasinha's prophecies should not be as much entitled to his
respect as those of his Saviour would be to ours--were we to ever write
the true history of the "Galilean" Arhat. With regard to charge two,
the distinguished philologist is reminded of the glass house he and all
Christian chronologists are themselves living in. Their inability to
vindicate the adoption of December 25 as the actual day of the Nativity,
and hence to determine the age and the year of their Avatar's death--
even before their own people--is far greater than is ours to demonstrate
the year of Buddha to other nations. Their utter failure to establish
on any other but traditional evidence the, to them, historically
unproved, if probable, fact of his existence at all--ought to engender a
fairer spirit. When Christian historians can, upon undeniable
historical authority, justify biblical and ecclesiastical chronology,
then, perchance, they may be better equipped than at present for the
congenial work of rending heathen chronologies into shreds.
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