Note 8 — LECTURE I. NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF THE TWO RELIGIONS.

T. W. Rhys Davids estimates the number at five hundred millions (Handbook of Buddhism, p. 6). The previous general estimate was about four hundred millions; but Dr. A. J. Happer, missionary at Canton for forty-five years, reduces this number to seventy-three millions. Sir Monier Williams, in his recent book on Buddhism, quoting Professor Legge’s introduction to Travels of Fa-Hian, calculates the number at one hundred millions, and claims for Christianity, with its four hundred and thirty millions of adherents, the numerical preponderance over all others.