however, pointed out that as they had not the smallest property beyond this, extreme inconvenience would result from the loss of it, for both of them must then remain at home. To this she replied that they must needs die in any case, and that their hopes for the future would be much improved if they died after presentation of an offering. She then returned to the monk, and requested him to turn away his eyes a moment. But he told her to give her alms openly in her hands, and that he would then recite a benediction over them. The full delicacy of her situation had now to be explained. "Except this cotton-wool stuff on my body I have nothing, and no other clothing; since, then, it would be improper for thee to behold the foul-smelling impurity of the female body, I will reach thee out the stuff from within." So saying she retired into the house and handed out her garment. When the monk delivered it to Buddha, it caused great offense to the king's courtiers, who surrounded him, on account of its being old and dirty. But Buddha, who knew their thoughts, said, "I find, that of all the gifts of this assembly, no single one surpasses this in cleanliness and purity" (W. u. Th., p. 150). Not only in the case of the widow at the treasury did Jesus dwell upon the value of even trifling gifts made for the sake of religion. Another time he declared to those about him that whoever gave them a cup of cold water in his name, because they belonged to Christ, would not lose his reward. In Buddhist story the very same ideas are to be found; almost the same words. An eminent member of the Buddha's circle says that "whoever with a purely-believing heart offers nothing but a handful of water, or presents so much to the spiritual assembly or to his parents, or gives drink therewith to the poor and needy, or to a beast of the field;—this meritorious action will not be exhausted in many ages" (W. u. Th., p. 37). The simile of fishing for men, employed by Jesus in his summons to Simon and Andrew, is likewise to be discovered in the works of the great Asiatic religion. The images of the Bodhisattvas, or Buddhas yet to come, frequently hold in their hands a snare, which is thus explained in the _Nippon Pantheon_:—"He disseminates upon the ocean of birth and decay the Lotus-flower of the excellent law as bait; with the loop of devotion, never cast out in vain, he brings living beings up like fishes, and carries them to the other side of the river, where there is true understanding" (B. T., p. 213). And in the book from which some illustrations have already been taken, it is said of a believer that "he had been seized by the hook of the doctrine, just as a fish, who has taken the line, is securely pulled out" (W. u. Th., p. 114).