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might with him have fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus 
Christ ; and that so their joy might be full. 
The spirit of man cannot cling to a nonentity , but, rightly led, it can flee to 
the embrace of a loving Father. The Buddhist Lama can say that “ all 
punishments proceed from sin,” but his system contains no atonement, no 
power of rolling away sin, no faith in a Personal Saviour . 
In regard to the object of worship presented to the Buddhist, I remark 
that the Buddha is nothing more than man, a “ descendant of the first king 
of men.” For “ there are eight qualifications that must be possessed by the 
being who receives the assurance of becoming a Buddha,” * of which the 
first is, “ He must be a man, and not a dewa. It is therefore requisite that 
the Bddhisatf continually keep the ten precepts, that he may have the 
merit to be born as a man .” Second, He must be a male and not a female ; 
and therefore the Bfidhisat must avoid all sins that would cause him to be 
born as a woman. Third, He must have the merit that would enable him to 
become a Bahat — all evil desire must be destroyed Fifth, There must 
be the abandonment of the world, and the Bddhisat must become an ascetic. 
.... He must exercise a firm determination to become a Buddha, and 
were he even told that in order to obtain its exalted rank he must endure 
the pains of hell during four asankya kap lakshas, he must be willing to 
suffer all this for its sake.” 
It is obvious that the stream cannot rise higher than its source, and if the 
object of worship be a failing man, the worshipper will not attain to any 
greater exaltation than the one whom he worships. 
Now the present Buddha (for he was preceded by 24) passed through 
a great variety of conditions (some 550 at least) before he was born. 
In the course of these he acquired a great deal of experience from his 
intercourse, not only with men but with animals, which he could 
recount at leisure, and become a very interesting companion ; so that 
Buddhist literature, which records these conversations, seems to resemble 
iEsop’s fables. He was (as recorded in the Jatakas) “ an ascetic 83 times ; 
a monarch, 58 ; the dewa (spirit) of a tree, 43 ; a religious teacher, 26 ; a 
courtier, 24 ; a prohita brahmin, 24 ; a prince, 24 ; a nobleman, 23 ; a 
learned man, 22 times ; an ape, 18 ; a merchant, 13 ; a man of wealth, 12 ; 
a deer, 10 ; a lion, 10 ; the bird Housa, 8 ; a snipe, 6 ; an elephant, 6 ; a 
fowl, 5 ; a slave, 5 ; a golden eagle, 5 ; a horse, 4 ; a bull, 4 ; ... a potter, 
3 ; an outcast, 3 times ; besides being twice each a fish, an elephant-driver, 
a rat, a jackall, a crow, a woodpecker, a thief, and a pig ; and once each 
a dog, a curer of snake-bites, a gambler, a mason, a smith, a devil dancer, 
a scholar, a silversmith, a carpenter, a water-fowl, a frog, a hare, a cock, 
a jungle fowl, and a Jcindura ,” X whatever that may be. It “ is evident ” (says 
Mr. Hardy) “ that this list is imperfect ” ; but it is sufficient for my purpose 
* See the Sujata Jataka, as translated by Hardy in Manual of Buddhism. 
t Candidate for Buddhaship. % Page 100. 
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