But Right Views or Belief, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Work, Right Livelihood, Right Exercise, Right Mindfulness, and Right Tranquillity, must be taken, not as we accept, but as Buddhists understand, the phrases. By right belief they unquestionably meant belief in Buddha and the Four Verities; right resolve included abandonment of all domestic and social duties; right speech was the recitation or publication of the dharma; right work was specially that of a monk; right livelihood that of living on alms; right exercise tended to the suppression of all individuality; right mindfulness was habitual contemplation upon the impurity and impermanence of human nature; and right tranquillity was ecstasy.[215] To have substituted even this in the Hindu mind for a righteousness only ceremonial and superstitious was indeed reformation; but as an idea of Perfection it is manifestly not only different from, but greatly inferior to, the Christian ideal. Perfection in the case of Buddhism meant extinction of feeling and consciousness; in Christianity it meant harmonious and full development of being and character. In Christianity perfection meant conformity to an Exemplar outside and above it, the likeness of a child to a Father in heaven; but Buddhism could conceive of no exemplar, and the man who would be perfect must strive in entire self-dependence to be so. In Buddhism the standard is purely human; in Christianity, while the measure required is relative, the standard is divine. So in Buddhism the Arhat is content, and we never hear from him the confession, “I count not myself to have attained!” but in Christianity the more saintly the life, the greater the discontent with it. The higher we rise the more urgent is the desire to press on. Christianity therefore opens up the avenue to perpetual improvement, and inspiring us with a motive to progress which can never lose its power, it provides for the soul the only rest that will satisfy it. “In life,” says Pascal, “we are ever believing, we seek repose, but what we really crave is agitation.” “It is the contest that pleases us, and not the victory; the pursuit and not the possession.”[216] Absolute truth and goodness is the perfection of divine blessedness; the never-ceasing pursuit of it is human blessedness. The goal we can never reach, but the watchword, “Nearer, my God, to Thee!” seems to solve for us the problem of human destiny, for by directing us to the life of perpetual achievement, it assures us of a never-ending blessedness.