Born the son of a chieftain in Nepal in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 560 B.C., Gotama, the great founder of Buddhism, was sheltered from the sights and sounds of suffering, as we are told in the loving stories of Buddhist lore, until the gods, who had a higher destiny in store for him than that of an Indian princeling, revealed to him the facts of old age and decay and death. In a series of visions--of the old man tottering down to the grave, of the leper riddled with foul disease, of the corpse laid out for the burning, the great fact of human suffering came home to him. It made so deep an impression that he renounced his royal rights and went out as a mendicant ascetic to discover some way of escape. He was then twenty-nine years old. Not until he had reached the age of thirty-eight, and had honestly tried the various accepted paths for the attainment of holiness and the escape from the burdens of life laid down by Hindu sages, did he find what he was seeking. Sitting under the Indian fig-tree in the heat of the day, he meditated patiently and long until the vision dawned upon him, or, as we should say, until his sub-consciousness, which had long been working upon the problem presented to it, sent a complete and satisfying solution into the focus of his conscious mind. His solution, recognising the fact that Hindu practices had vainly attempted to drug the aching nerve of pain or to tear it out, offered a more positive remedy. The present writer believes that the Spirit of God had much to do with this discovery. There are, however, among missionaries, many who feel that this is a grievous heresy, and are bitterly opposed to any such view. In order to understand the solution which Gotama offered to the world, which undoubtedly captured the enthusiasm of unnumbered millions of weary pilgrims in India and other lands, it may be well to consider Gotama's own description of himself as "a physician of sick souls." Just as the physician must first diagnose the disease and recognise the germ which is its secret cause, before he can give the right treatment, so Gotama set himself to discover the hidden cause of the world's suffering. He thought that he had found it in that universal clinging to life which he called _tanhā_, which means a "craving" for anything less austere than _Nibbāna_. "From _tanhā_ springs sorrow; he that is free from _tanhā_ is freed from sorrow and suffering." This is the source of all the world's agony, says Gotama: and if we face the facts we shall see that egoism of men and nations, a form of _tanhā_, accounts for most of it! The modern world is full of _tanhā_. 5. It cultivates a Sense of the Worthlessness of Temporal Things.