"Proud words, albeit not proudly spoken, thine," Said Krishna; "spotlessly enrobed art thou In righteousness and karma without flaw, Then thou hast reached the issue of The Way And art already for nirvâna ripe: Gautama could not make a bolder claim When, conquering, he attained the Buddhaship. Yet meekly thou madest mention of pure grace, And merit all another's, not thine own. A paradox indeed, perplexing me, Such boldness mixed with such humility." "Yea," Paul said, "the humility it is That makes the boldness thou hast found in me; It were defect of right humility Not boldly to obey when Christ bids do. Christ bids me take His perfect righteousness; I can be humble but by taking it-- Boldly? yea, or as if boldly, for here Humility and boldness twain are one." "To thee thy teacher Christ," said Krishna, "seems Something the same as Buddha is to me: Yet other, more; not teacher simply, Christ To thee, and master, setter forth of wise Instructions and commands obeying which Thou also now, as he once saved himself, Mayst thyself save through merit hardly earned. Thy Christ is will, not less than wisdom; power And help, as well as guidance in the way. Sovereign creator and imparter, he Saves thee, thou trustest, through new life bestowed, Which makes thee other than thou wast before, And therefore frees thee from the fatal yoke And bondage of the karma thou hadst won With labor when thou wast the former man: The words are easy, but the sense is hard." "Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossible To any soul of man that still abides His old first natural self unchanged to new. Submit thyself unto the righteousness Of God, and thou the mystery shalt know With knowledge deeper than the mind's most deep Divinings of the things she cannot speak." "To fate, the universe, and necessity," Said Krishna, "I submit, because I must. But to submit because I will, to any thing, Much more to any one, that is, give up My will, which is my self, my very self, To be another's and no longer mine, Consent to be another person quite Than I have been, and am, and wish to be-- This thou proposest to me, if I take Rightly thy words to mean thou thus hast done, Becoming what thou art by vital change From something different that thou wast before. I frankly tell thee I have not the power So to commute myself, had I the will."