ch join in the life of the family which he visited as convert the
entertainment offered to him into an edifying religious service. Yet in
propaganda and controversy he was gracious and humane beyond the measure
of all other teachers. He did not call the priests of his time a
generation of vipers, though he laughed at their ceremonies and their
pretensions to superior birth.

Though the Buddha passed through intellectual crises such as the
biographies of Christ do not hint at, yet in other matters it is he
rather than Christ who offers a picture and example of peace. Christ
enjoyed with a little band of friends an intimacy which the Hindu gave
to none, but from the very commencement of his mission he is at enmity
with what he calls the world. The world is evil and a great event is
coming of double import, for it will bring disaster on the wicked as
well as happiness for the good. "Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is
at hand." He is angry with the world because it will not hear him. He
declares that it hates him and the gospel according to St John even
makes him say, "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast
given me[400]." The little towns of Galilee are worse in his eyes than
the wicked cities of antiquity because they are not impressed by his
miracles and Jerusalem which has slighted all the prophets and finally
himself is to receive signal punishment. The shadow of impending death
fell over the last period of his ministry and he felt that he was to be
offered as a sacrifice. The Jews even seem to have thought at one time
that he was unreasonably alarmed[401].

But the Buddha was not angry with the world. He thought of it as
unsatisfactory and transitory rather than wicked, as ignorant rather
than rebellious. He troubled little about people who would not listen.
The calm and confidence which so many narratives attribute to him rarely
failed to meet with the respect which they anticipated. In his life
there is no idea of sacrifice, no element of the tragic, no nervous
irritability. When Devadatta meditated his assassination, he is
represented as telling his disciples that they need not be uneasy
because it was physically impossible to kill a Buddha. The saying is
perhaps not historical but it illustrates Indian sentiment. In his
previous existences, when preparing for Buddhahood, he had frequently
given his life for others, not because it was any particular good to
them but in order to perfect his cha