There was clearly a party which wished to make the rule of his order more severe and, had he consented, the religious world of his day would have approved.  But by so doing he would have made Buddhism an Indian sect like Jainism, incapable of flourishing in lands with other institutions.  If Buddhism has had little influence outside Asia, that is because there are differences of temperament in the world, not because it sanctions anachronisms or prescribes observances of a purely local and temporary value.  In all his teaching Gotama insists on what is essential only and will not lend his name and authority to what is merely accessory.  He will not for instance direct or even recommend his disciples to be hermits.  “Whoever wishes may dwell in a wood and whoever wishes may dwell near a village.”  And in his last days he bade them be a light unto themselves and gave them authority to change all the lesser precepts.  It is true that the order decided to make no use of this permission, but the spirit which dictated it has shaped the destinies of the faith.

Akin to this contrast is another—­that between the tolerance of Gotama and the persecuting spirit of Islam.  Mohammed and his followers never got rid of the idea that any other form of religion is an insult to the Almighty:  that infidels should if possible be converted by compulsion, or, if that were impossible, allowed to exist only on sufferance and in an inferior position.  Such ideas were unknown to Gotama.  He laboured not for his own or his Creator’s glory but simply and solely to benefit mankind.  Conversion by force had no meaning for him, for what he desired was not a profession of allegiance but a change of disposition and amid many transformations his Church has not lost this temper.

When we come to compare Gotama and Christ we are struck by many resemblances of thought but also by great differences of circumstances and career.  Both were truly spiritual teachers who rose above forms and codes:  both accepted the current ideals of their time and strove to become the one a Buddha, the other Messiah.  But at the age when Christ was executed Gotama was still in quest of truth and still on the wrong track.  He lived nearly fifty years longer and had ample opportunity of putting his ideas into practice.  So far as our meagre traditions allow us to trace the development of the two, the differences are even more fundamental.  Peaceful as was the latter part of Gotama’s life, the beginning was a period of struggle and disillusion.  He broke away from worldly life to study philosophy:  he broke away from philosophy to wear out his body with the severest mortification; that again he found to be vanity and only then did he attain to enlightenment.  And though he offers salvation to all without distinction, he repeatedly says that it is difficult:  with hard wrestling has he won the truth and it is hard for ordinary men to understand.