Certainly in the two ministries was fulfilled a saying of Christ, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him will ye receive,” for after a very short period of imperfect success the public career of Gotama became a continuous victorious progress. Disciples, drawn mostly from the highest classes—the Brahmans, the nobles, and the wealthy merchants—flocked round him wherever he appeared. He journeyed followed by admiring crowds, he had only to show himself to impress, and he had only to preach to convince. The most stubborn resistance became fluid under his spell, and those who approached to confute were sure to succumb to his sweet reasonableness. He was supported by powerful rajahs, and those who did not show him proper reverence were punished according to their edicts. He was lodged in parks and gardens and palaces, several of which were gifted to him for the use of his Order. Accessible always to people of all castes, and of every condition, and of both sexes, he received the attention of the courtesan, and shared her feast and accepted her offering,[141] but he always maintained the nobility and purity of an irreproachable character, and wherever he was found it was as the prophet of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Rejoicing through his long and honourable ministry, sometimes loath to die, as foreseeing the troubles which would befall his Order after his decease, he at last, when over fourscore years, in a sickness alleged to have been induced by partaking too freely of some rich food, with the quiet dignity and composure of a saint, fell asleep, and was buried with the funeral obsequies which Indians then bestowed on the bodies of their greatest kings.[142] It would be impossible, in every respect, to find a more absolute contrast to all this than the story of Jesus of Nazareth. If He was popular, it was only for a little, and then only with the masses. The aristocracy and the religious classes stood aloof, and soon entered into a conspiracy to get rid of Him. He had a few disciples among them, like Joseph of Arimathæa, and Nicodemus, and the family at Bethany, but the words of the prophet accurately sum up the narratives of the Gospel, that He was “despised and rejected of men.” To follow Him meant joining in no triumphal procession, but in a struggle against storm and tide which was sure to end in death. Suspected from the first, and speedily denounced, He was watched and tracked and driven from place to place, till at last the toils of the hunters closed successfully around Him, and at the age of thirty-three He was crucified as a malefactor between two robbers on Calvary.