Thus we see the beauties of this life. Looked at in this way, we discover a great deal in Buddha’s character to admire. Saint-Hilaire says (we give a free translation from the French): “His life has no stain. His constant heroism equals his conviction; and if the theory which he extols is faultless, the personal example which he presents is irreproachable. He is the finished model of all the virtues which he preached; his teaching of self-denial, of charity, of an unchangeable mildness, do not for a single instant receive the contradiction of a different life. He abandons, at the age of twenty-nine years, the court of his royal father to become a devotee and a mendicant; he prepares silently his doctrines during six years of meditation and retreat; he extends his faith only by the power of speech and persuasion, during half a century; and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity of a sage who has lived well, and who is assured that he has found the truth.” It is not our purpose to compare here the teachings of Buddha and Christ, but simply the life. It is a comparison that we would make, and not a contrast. Buddha’s self-denial for the world’s good, his wondrously pure life, and the heavenliness of his manners and of some of his teachings greatly resemble those of Jesus Christ. Yet, after all, he stands a long way off. He is a light, it is true, yet but feebly shining beside the light of the Sun of Righteousness. To Christ, Gautama is but “As moonlight is to sunlight, and as water is to wine.”