easts will show gratitude;
so that a man who does not requite a favour is worse even than dumb
brutes. Is not this a disgrace?

Once upon a time, in a hut at a place called Namekata, in Hitachi,
there lived an old priest famous neither for learning nor wisdom, but
bent only on passing his days in prayer and meditation. He had not
even a child to wait upon him, but prepared his food with his own
hands. Night and morning he recited the prayer "Namu Amida Butsu,"[80]
intent upon that alone. Although the fame of his virtue did not reach
far, yet his neighbours respected and revered him, and often brought
him food and raiment; and when his roof or his walls fell out of
repair, they would mend them for him; so for the things of this world
he took no thought.

[Footnote 80: A Buddhist prayer, in which something approaching to the
sounds of the original Sanscrit has been preserved. The meaning of the
prayer is explained as, "Save us, eternal Buddha!" Many even of the
priests who repeat it know it only as a formula, without understanding
it.]

One very cold night, when he little thought any one was outside, he
heard a voice calling "Your reverence! your reverence!" So he rose and
went out to see who it was, and there he beheld an old badger
standing. Any ordinary man would have been greatly alarmed at the
apparition; but the priest, being such as he has been described above,
showed no sign of fear, but asked the creature its business. Upon this
the badger respectfully bent its knees, and said--

"Hitherto, sir, my lair has been in the mountains, and of snow or
frost I have taken no heed; but now I am growing old, and this severe
cold is more than I can bear. I pray you to let me enter and warm
myself at the fire of your cottage, that I may live through this
bitter night."

When the priest heard what a helpless state the beast was reduced to,
he was filled with pity, and said--

"That's a very slight matter: make haste and come in and warm
yourself."

The badger, delighted with so good a reception, went into the hut, and
squatting down by the fire began to warm itself; and the priest, with
renewed fervour, recited his prayers and struck his bell before the
image of Buddha, looking straight before him. After two hours the
badger took its leave, with profuse expressions of thanks, and went
out; and from that time forth it came every night to the hut. As the
badger would collect and bring with it dried branches and dead le