M. Guimet has built and given to France a "
Museum of Religions " in the Avenue d'Iena, which the President of the Republic, M. Carnot, formally opened on Wednesday. It has rooms devoted to the Buddhist, the Tao, the Brahmanical, and the old Japanese faith (Shinto), and the faiths of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Buddha, Brahma, and the ancient Vedic gods are there, and also a Temple of Juggernaut. Further, there is a very perfect collection of Buddhist ecclesiastical vestments, per- fectly new garments being covered with patches, as a sort of testimony that the priests must be poor unless the faithful are generous. The museum is clearly one of great interest, aiming as it does to give all that is visible of the form and substance of the various extinct and extant faiths. But the invisible elements of faiths are far the most important, and this the Museum of Religions cannot supply. Perhaps, indeed, a museum of those elements in the various religions of the world which are necessarily the least important, may prove to be a little misleading. Even the patches on the Buddhist vestments suggest rather the ostentatious abuse, than the use of Buddhist poverty.
Previous page
