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FOOTPRINTS OF BUDDHA.
respect to many. Then I beheld Buddha with his band of monks as he passed to the town of Magadha. I cast away my burden and ran to bow myself in reverence before him. From pity for me he halted, that highest among men. Then I bowed myself at the master's feet, drew nigh to him and begged him, the highest among all beings, to accept me as a monk. Then said unto me the gracious master, 'Come hither, O monk'—that was the initiation I received." And the passage concludes with the lesson which Gautama had so often preached, "By holy zeal and chaste living, by restraint and self-repression, thereby a man becomes a Brahman: that is the highest Brahmanhood."
Thus the great teacher who regarded nor wealth, nor rank, nor caste, came to the poor and the despised, as well as to the rich and the noble, urging them to effect their own salvation by a pure and unblemished life. Virtue opened the path of honour to high and low alike; no distinction was known or recognized in the Holy Order. Thousands of men and women responded to this appeal, and merged their caste inequalities in common love for their teacher and common emulation of his virtues.
Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that Gautama
