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- Summary conscience of a robber or a rebellious servant. These people, filled with the sentiment of innate honesty which the priests, to further their personal ends, make every endeavour to crush, very quickly become honest and feel contempt for those who have unjustly abused them.
By the single virtue of truthfulness one could make of entire India with its three hundred millions of idols a vast Christian country. But this beautiful project would probably create a prejudice among certain Christians, who like the priests above mentioned, speculate upon the ignorance of the masses to enrich themselves. .
St. Luke says that Jesus was about thirty years old when he entered on his ministry. According to the Buddhist chronicler Jesus must have begun preaching in his twenty-ninth year. All his sermons which the evangelists do not mention and which have been preserved by the Buddhists are remarkable for their character of divine grandeur. The fame of the new preacher spread rapidly through the country and Jerusalem eagerly awaited his arrival. When he approached the holy city, the people went to meet him in great throngs and led him triumphantly to the temple, which is in conformity with the Christian tradition The chiefs and the learned men who heard him, admired his sermons and rejoiced at the beneficent impression produced by his words on the multitude. All the remarkable sermons of Jesus are full of sublime words.
Pilate, the governor of the country, however, did not look at this matter in the same light. Zealous agents reported to him that Jesus had announced the near approach of a new kingdom, the re-establishment of the throne of Israel, and that he claimed himself to be the Son of God, sent to restore the courage of Israel, for he, the King of Judea, would soon ascend the throne of his ancestors.
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