he saw in this resemblance
only a trick of Satan; the life of Buddha being, in his opinion, merely
a diabolic counterfeit of the life of Josaphat centuries before the
latter was lived or written--just as good Abbe Huc saw in the ceremonies
of Buddhism a similar anticipatory counterfeit of Christian ritual.

There the whole matter virtually rested for about three hundred
years--various scholars calling attention to the legend as a curiosity,
but none really showing its true bearings--until, in 1859, Laboulaye in
France, Liebrecht in Germany, and others following them, demonstrated
that this Christian work was drawn almost literally from an early
biography of Buddha, being conformed to it in the most minute details,
not only of events but of phraseology; the only important changes being
that, at the end of the various experiences showing the wretchedness of
the world, identical with those ascribed in the original to the young
Prince Buddha, the hero, instead of becoming a hermit, becomes a
Christian, and that for the appellation of Buddha--"Bodisat"--is
substituted the more scriptural name Josaphat.

Thus it was that, by virtue of the infallibility vouchsafed to the
papacy in matters of faith and morals, Buddha became a Christian saint.

Yet these were by no means the most pregnant revelations. As the
Buddhist scriptures were more fully examined, there were disclosed
interesting anticipations of statements in later sacred books. The
miraculous conception of Buddha and his virgin birth, like that of
Horus in Egypt and of Krishna in India; the previous annunciation to his
mother Maja; his birth during a journey by her; the star appearing
in the east, and the angels chanting in the heavens at his birth; his
temptation--all these and a multitude of other statements were full
of suggestions to larger thought regarding the development of sacred
literature in general. Even the eminent Roman Catholic missionary Bishop
Bigandet was obliged to confess, in his scholarly life of Buddha, these
striking similarities between the Buddhist scriptures and those which
it was his mission to expound, though by this honest statement his own
further promotion was rendered impossible. Fausboll also found the story
of the judgment of Solomon imbedded in Buddhist folklore; and Sir Edwin
Arnold, by his poem, The Light of Asia, spread far and wide a knowledge
of the anticipation in Buddhism of some ideas which down to a recent
period were consider