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" Jesus was more than equal to the emergency, and stooping down, he wrote with his finger on the ground. ( 14) There was a great audience in the temple, and Jesus had been sitting there, teaching the people, when this terrified woman was pushed through the throng and thrust into his very presence. She is trembling with fear; terror is stamped upon every lineament of her face. The scribes insist that the proof of her guilt is beyond all possible question. Now, if he con- demns her, they will charge him with cruelty and bar- barity. If he lets her go, then he himself is teaching in open defiance of the Mosaic law. Turn which way he may, the Pharisees think they have him completely cornered. They look about triumphantly. They ques- tion him: "Master, what sayest thou?" Jesus is writing on the ground. They press about him, and look over his shoulder to see what he has written. These men claim to be strict keepers of the law; they pay their tithes; they are conspicuous at the Passover; (14) I am indebted to Professor Gregory, of Leipsic, Saxony, for an ingenious solution of this mystery of what Jesus wrote, though I am not entirely certain that he is right. But Professor Gregory cannot be far out of the way, for it can hardly be con- ceived that words less truthful and convicting could have scat- tered those Pharisees as did those words written on the ground, for the law violated by the woman. Levit., ch. 20, v. 10, and John 8, V. 1 to 10. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 83 they claim to be sinless ; they think Jesus is beaten. But what is he writing? These are his ominous, convicting words : "Eldad killed his friend, Modar, in the wilderness." "Horan cheated Bunam's widow out of her house." "Arved's wife zvas compelled to yield to the power of Muman." Consternation has siezed the woman's accusers. El- dad supposed his sin was unknown, and as he reads of his crime, his face blanches as did the woman's a moment before. Horan, who claimed to be honest and pious, is amazed to see his fraud written out, so that all could read it. Muman's guilt is even greater than that of the wo- man he seeks to have stoned to death. There is a shuffling in the crowd. Eldad is pressing his way out. Jesus now turns upon the woman's ac- cusers: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Again he writes upon the ground. Muman is squeez- ing through the throng to hide; mortification and fear are stamped upon his face. Horan, crestfallen and conscience-smitten, is striving to reach the door. One by one, all the other accusers slink away. Jesus and the woman are left alone. Jesus looks up, "Wo- man, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man 84 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES condemned thee?" "None, my Lord." "Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more." (15) There is no record that Jesus ever wrote another line; yet his name and fame fill the whole world with fragrance. (15) John 8, V. 10 and 11. CHAPTER VII Buddha Seeks Religion in the Forest. Section i. If I could paint Buddha and Jesus as compared with other men, I would paint two mighty mountains, reaching from earth to heaven ; the top of one in India, its base reaching the other in Palestine. On the top of one I would write the word "J^^us," on the top of the other "Buddha." At *he foot of each of these mountains I would raise two insignificant hills, scarcely perceptible, and on each crest write the word "self-love." These men so loved mankind that they both devoted their lives to the welfare of the race. The mountains represent their complete unselfishness, the mole-hills their self-love. One of these men, after a short and brilliant career, was cruelly nailed to a cross; the other toiled to his dying hour to guide his people into a sure haven of rest and peace. No man can be truly great whose very soul is cankered with selfishness. Greed of wealth — in other words, selfish- ness, in one form or another — stains the whole calendar. Some men, selfishly and unjustly, wring millions from 85 86 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES the people, and then to gain the name of being generous and liberal donate a bagatelle to some university or library. This has been done in America. In truth, such men are only gigantic robbers under the forms of law; but, "Despite their titles, power and pelf, The wretches concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And doubly dying shall go down To the vile dust from ivhencc they sprung; Unwept, unhonored and unsung." (i) Such men forget that Jesus said : "Love thy neigh- bor as thyself." They never heard (nor would they have heeded if they had heard) that Buddha preached and urged that "men should be kind and peaceful, bringing hurt to no one; and that all should be truth- ful, pure, honest, just." (2) Section 2. Both Jesus and Buddha, as we have seen, are said to have come down from heaven to bless the race; but I shall treat them simply as men of the very highest type; supreme in love and mercy and all the great moral attributes. (3) (1) I have changed Sir "Walter Scott's inspired stanzas to hit the coal robbers, the oil thieves, the steel swindlers, and I might greatly prolong the list, including all trusts and all unlawful combinations. There are plenty of the thieving brood in Amer- (2) Vol. 11, Sacred Books of the East, p. 144, and Vol. 13, p. 95. (3) I do not say as a matter of fact that they did not come down from Heaven. I simply affirm that the record seems to A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 87 Their followers have given them many endearing names. Buddha is called The Great Samana, The Blessed One. Bodhissatta, Tathagata, Gotama, The Enlightened One, The Master, The Holy One, The Lord of the World, The Redeemer, The Great King of Glory, etc. Jesus is called The Son of God, The Redeemer, The Saviour, The Lamb of God, The Prince of Peace, The Everlasting Father, etc. As Buddha preceded Jesus ribout five hundred years, let us follow his fortunes for a time. We have seen him at the edge of the forest, where he dismisses Kandaka, his servant, with the injunction that he tell his father, the king, to stifle every feeling of affection for him, as he has entered the mountain wilds, where he expects to undergo a painful discipline in seeking true religion. Again we have seen him in that great struggle for perfect purity of heart. (4) He is now in the forest, and a new world opens on his astonished vision. He found men undergoing the most terrible austerities, hoping thereby to gain, at the end of life, a birth in heaven. Some subsisted on roots and twigs; others captured their food and ate it, as did the birds. (5) Some were letting water drip continually on their be faulty. Such proof would not stand a moment in a Court of Justice. In truth, they were born the same as other children. Their bodies therefore did not come down from heaven, or go up to heaven. In fact, Buddha, as we shall see, was cremated. (4) Ch. 1, sec. 5, and ch. 6, sec. 2. (5) Fo Sho Hing, Varga 7, verses 513 to 526. 88 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES shaven heads; while others submerged their bodies in water and Hved as near as possible as the fishes live. No wonder the prince regarded those men with pity and was staggered to think that such suffering must be endured "in quest of heavenly reward" ; thus, in the circle of birth and death, "enduring affliction that they might attain a felicity not granted on earth." Those Hindu ascetics believed that in some former births great sins had been committed by them, and that they w'ere thus atoning for them. The Jews, a thou- sand years before Buddha was born, invented a much more convenient way of atoning for their wickedness. Once a year they brought a bullock without the camp and burned him in the fire to make an atonement for all their sins. (6) The Jews were told to wail and moan. They girded themselves with sackcloth and scattered ashes on their heads (7). This was common even in Jesus' day (8), and the Catholic Church has brought it down to a very recent period. Section 3. Those ascetics which Buddha found in the forests went to awful extremes in mortifying the flesh; they punished it terribly with every kind of afflic- tion ; all in the interest and name of religion. But Gotama said to them : "If you regulate the mind, the body will spontaneously go right." (9) Whether he uttered those words then, I know not; but they were, (6) Levit., ch. 16, v. 27 to 34. (7) Joel 1, V.