Note 18 — Chapter IV · BURMAH.

“I do not hesitate to add that, with the exception of the Christ alone, there is among the founders of religions no purer or more affecting figure than that of Buddha. His life has no stain. His constant heroism equals his conviction; and if the theory which he extols is false, the personal examples which he gives are irreproachable. He is the finished model of all the virtues which he preaches; his self-denial, his charity, his unalterable gentleness do not fail for a single instant; at twenty-nine years of age he leaves the court of the king, his father, in order to become a recluse and a mendicant; he silently prepares his doctrine during six years of seclusion and meditation; he propagates it for more than half a century by the power of persuasion alone; and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity of a sage who has practiced the good all his life and who is assured of having found the true.”