yet be assured the words of Buddha are true"; and again: "Beware of fixing your eyes upon women"; "A wise man should avoid unchaste life, as if it were a burning pit of live coals"; "One who is not able to live in a state of celibacy should not commit adultery." According to Buddha, the motives of all our actions should be pity, or love for our neighbour. Those who became his disciples were told they must renounce the world, give up their riches, and take the vow of poverty. Finally, we should note that Buddha aimed to establish a "Kingdom of Heaven" (Dharmachakra); that the account given by St. Peter (Ep. ii., ch. 3) of the earth once destroyed by water, and about to be destroyed by fire, is in agreement with the Buddhist story; and that the Jews believed in the pre-existence of souls and a modified form of metempsychosis (transmigration of the soul). It is difficult to separate fiction from fact; but the generally accepted records show that, together with superior natural endowments, Gautama Buddha attained to an exceptional purity of life and integrity of purpose. Probably he never arrogated to himself any higher authority than that of a teacher; but his followers, turning for consolation to the theory that he still lived, exalted him, within a quarter of a century of his death, to a place among their deities. As already mentioned, he was very early regarded as omniscient and absolutely sinless. [94] All sorts of legends, borrowed from current myths, attach themselves to the story of his life, while his teaching as a simple-hearted, truth-seeking philanthropist became encrusted with the superstitions and religious speculations that were current. As with Krishna, so here there are stories of Buddha's childhood of which the apocryphal stories of Christ's childhood are an almost exact reproduction. PARALLELS OTHER THAN KRISHNA AND BUDDHA. In the case of Krishna and Buddha it is contended by some Christian writers that the stories must have been borrowed from Christian sources both canonical and apocryphal. This contention, founded on the lateness of the mythical stories in literary form, will be considered in due course; but first let us have clearly before our minds those parallels concerning which there is no such contention, for the simple reason that there is no getting away from the fact that the beliefs existed long before the advent of Christ. In ancient religions other than Hindooism and Buddhism, there are, among many others, distinct parallels to--the Virgin Birth; the Heavenly Choir; the Epiphany; the Slaughter of the Innocents; the Temptation and Forty Days' Fast; the Miracles; the Crucifixion Darkness, and Descent into Hell; the Resurrection and Ascension; the Second Coming and Day of Judgment.