

ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 71 



lower deeps ; men who have shown the mighty power 

 for virtue that lies even in one unbending will; and 

 such suggest the reassuring thought that similar spirits 

 exist at the worst of times, who will dare all death 

 itself, and worse, if fate has worse rather than betray 

 the sacred cause of Truth at a time, critical for Humanity 

 itself, when her life seems threatened. 



And there has been a still more select and inimitable 

 few ; spirits, awful, beautiful, all but divine, who, 

 troubled at once by the mystery of life, and moved by 

 the mighty miseries of men to an infinite love and pity 

 for them, have turned aside from the joys of life that 

 they might have had, if only they could have enjoyed 

 them in the midst of the endless sorrow and with the 

 infinite wail of the world ringing in their ears ; men who 

 have thought, and meditated, and fasted, and supplicated 

 to find out some way of salvation for afilicted mankind, 

 or some mitigation at least of all its miseries. There 

 have been men who could find no peace or joy in life 

 for themselves while the huge incarnate sorrow existed 

 all around them ; who were ready to die for men, if only 

 they might thereby improve their lot ; who like Buddha, 

 resigned all that men call happiness, who like Mahomet, 

 staked life, and like Christ, voluntarily sacrificed it, to 

 save the rest of their fellows. What is more, these 

 mighty spirits not only tried to discover, but actually 

 found, a means of salvation a way of righteousness for 

 men. They did veritably discover and teach men the 

 true way of life, and how they might bear or conquer 

 the evils of life and of destiny. Each of them found a 

 means, pointed out a way, as best suited the needs of 

 their contemporary men, and these means and this way 

 were in great measure applicable to all mankind. They 

 found out truths, permanent and great truths renuncia- 



