The love which like an endless golden chain
Joined all in one.

Whatever others may think, it is my firm belief that Buddhism and
Christianity, which we cannot doubt have influenced for good such vast
masses the human family, both descended from heaven clothed in robes of
celestial purity which have become sadly stained by their contact with
the selfishness of a sinful world, except for which belief the
following pages would never have been written, which are now sent forth
in the hope that they may do something to enable Buddhists and
Christians to see eye to eye and something to promote peace and
good-will among men.

While following my own conceptions and even fancies in many things, I
believe the leading characters and incidents to be historical, and I
have given nothing as the teaching of the great master which was not to
my mind clearly authenticated.

To those who have read so much about agnostic Buddhism, and about
Nirvana meaning annihilation, it may seem bold in me to present Buddha
as an undoubting believer in the fundamental truths of all religion,
and as not only a believer in a spiritual world but an actual visitor
to its sad and blissful scenes; but the only agnosticism I have been
able to trace to Buddha was a want of faith in the many ways invented
through the ages to escape the consequences of sin and to avoid the
necessity of personal purification, and the only annihilation he taught
and yearned for was the annihilation of self in the highest Christian
sense, and escape from that body of death from which the Apostle Paul
so earnestly sought deliverance.