d by
no sovereign power, and always at war. And the king, as fathers are, was
full of dreams that this son of his should subdue all India to himself,
and be the glory of his dynasty, and the founder of a great race.

Everything seemed to fall in with the desire of the king. The prince
grew up strong and valiant, skilled in action, wise in counsel, so that
all his people were proud of him. Everything fell in with the desire of
the king except the prince himself, for instead of being anxious to
fight, to conquer other countries, to be a great leader of armies, his
desires led him away from all this. Even as a boy he was meditative and
given to religious musings, and as he grew up he became more and more
confirmed in his wish to know of sacred things, more and more an
inquirer into the mysteries of life.

He was taught all the faith of those days, a faith so old that we do not
know whence it came. He was brought up to believe that life is immortal,
that no life can ever utterly die. He was taught that all life is one;
that there is not one life of the beasts and one life of men, but that
all life was one glorious unity, one great essence coming from the
Unknown. Man is not a thing apart from this world, but of it. As man's
body is but the body of beasts, refined and glorified, so the soul of
man is but a higher stage of the soul of beasts. Life is a great ladder.
At the bottom are the lower forms of animals, and some way up is man;
but all are climbing upwards for ever, and sometimes, alas! falling
back. Existence is for each man a great struggle, punctuated with many
deaths; and each death ends one period but to allow another to begin, to
give us a new chance of working up and gaining heaven.

He was taught that this ladder is very high, that its top is very far
away, above us, out of our sight, and that perfection and happiness lie
up there, and that we must strive to reach them. The greatest man, even
the greatest king, was farther below perfection than an animal was below
him. We are very near the beasts, but very far from heaven. So he was
taught to remember that even as a very great prince he was but a weak
and erring soul, and that unless he lived well, and did honest deeds,
and was a true man, instead of rising he might fall.

This teaching appealed to the prince far more than all the urging of his
father and of the courtiers that he should strive to become a great
conqueror. It entered into his very soul, and h