Jesus and Gotama both issued from their retreats and mystic communions, impregnated with a deep sympathy for a suffering world, for the weary and heavy laden. They both accentuated with the same fervour of conviction the futility of laying up treasure upon earth, and pointed to the same mysterious heaven where true joy alone was to be found. But none of the dicta of Gotama have approached, either in a doctrinal sense or in uncompromising severity, the declaration of the Prophet of Nazareth as to the absolute necessity of renouncing the most sacred family ties before acceptance could be possible as a true and faithful disciple: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple." The use of vehement declamations of this nature was probably forced upon the speaker by the condition of those days, when it was more than ever necessary to draw a sharp line and to emphasize the depth of the chasm that must divide followers of the ideal from those in thrall to the material. It has been remarked by Mr. Lillie that, if Jesus had had to deal with people in a later or more advanced state of civilization, other methods and other language would in all probability have been used to suit the altered conditions. The attitude towards relations which Jesus, in the above-quoted passage, seems to have expected a disciple to assume may receive some elucidation from a story told in Visuddhi-Maga, which is headed by the translator, Mr. H. C. Warren,[E] "And Hate Not his Father and Mother." The story, briefly related, is to this effect:-- A young man left his father's house, and, having joined the Buddhist order of mendicants, was lost sight of by his parents. The mother sorrowed for the long absence of her son. [E] _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 434. Meanwhile the young monk had been allotted a cell in a certain monastery. But it so happened that this cell had been provided at the expense of his father, who was a devout layman. When the father heard that the cell had been occupied, he set forth to visit the occupant, and, as was customary, to beg him to seek his alms at his house for a space of three months. The young monk appeared at the door of the cell, in his yellow robe and with shaven head, and, unrecognized by his father, accepted the invitation to receive alms at the house of the layman. Day after day he attended at the threshold of his father's house, and took food from the hands of his parents. Still the mother continued to grieve for her long-absent son, accounting him dead. One day, as the monk was returning towards the monastery, after parting on the road with his mother, the latter's brother, an elder, overtook her. She fell at her brother's feet, weeping and lamenting for her son.