crook-back'd lord!
Ay, but I'm free from rebirth and from death,
And all that dragged me back is hurled away."

But more truly characteristic of the spiritual mind is the joyful advice
of one who, having perfected herself in meditation, could thus commune
with her soul:

"Hast thou not seen sorrow and ill in all
The springs of life? Come thou not back to birth!
Cast out the passionate desire again to Be.
So shalt thou go thy ways calm and serene."

Thus only by the recognition of the sorrow of the world, by the conquest
of all desires, and by the exercise of kindliness to all that breathe
this life of misery, is that Path to be trodden of which the fourth
stage enters Nirvana's peace. Thus only can we escape from this
repulsive carcass--"this bag of skin with carrion filled," as one of the
Sisters called it--and so be merged into the element of calm, just as
the space inside a bowl is merged into the element of space when at last
the bowl is broken and will never need scrubbing more.

It is thought that Gautama, the great Buddha, whose effigy in the calm
of contemplation is the noblest work of Indian art, fondly believed that
all mankind would seek deliverance along the path he pointed out, and
that so, within a few generations, the human race, together, perhaps,
with every living thing that breathes beneath the law of Karma, would
pass from sorrow into nothingness. Mankind has not fulfilled his
expectation. The task of expiation is not yet completed, and, in the
midst of anguish, corruption, and the flux of all material things, the
human race goes swarming on. I suppose it is about as numerous as ever,
and, though something like half of it accepts the teaching of the Buddha
as divine, they seem in no more hurry to fulfil its precepts than are
the followers of other Founders. We cannot say that mankind has gone
very far along the Fourfold Path, for there are still many of us who
would rather be a mouse than nothing; yet it remains an accepted truth
of the Buddhistic doctrine, that above this fleeting and variegated
world there abides the element of calm. As the final Chorus "Mysticus"
of _Faust_ proclaims: "All things transitory are but a symbol," and if
any politician during the storm of worldly desires has for a moment lost
sight of truth's eternal stars that guide his way, let him now turn to
the "Psalms of the Sisters." Even if he has been successful in his
ambition, he will there find peace, disco