"As when a string of blind men are clinging one to the other, neither can the foremost see, nor the middle one see, nor the hindmost see. Just so, methinks, Vâsittha is the talk of the Brahmins versed in the Three Vedas." (Buddha, in the "Tevigga Sutta," i. 15.)
"EUNUCHS FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN'S SAKE."
In the days of St. Thomas à Kempis the worshipper was modelled on the Christ. In our days, the Christ seems modelled on the worshipper. The Bodleian professor of Sanscrit writes thus: "Christianity teaches that in the highest form of life love is intensified. Buddhism teaches that in the highest state of existence all love is extinguished. According to Christianity—Go and earn your own bread and support yourself and your family. Marriage, it says, is honourable and undefiled, and married life a field where holiness can grow."
But history is history; and a French writer has recently attacked Christ for attempting to bring into Europe the celibacy and pessimism of Buddhism. This author in his work, "Jésus Bouddha," cites Luke xiv. 26:—
"If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
He adduces also:—
"Let the dead bury their dead."
"Think not that I have come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Matt. x. 34-36.)
"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." (Ibid. ver. 21.)
"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv. 33).