Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/449

Rh "Very well. I will do so," said she. "Take me with you to the Master!"

To this he agreed. And when the night was just passing away, he took her, very early in the morning, to the presence of the Master; and told him all that she had done.

When the Master heard it, he said, "You see, O householder, how the sinful man looks upon sin as pleasant, so long as it bears no fruit but when its fruit ripens, then he looks upon it as sin. And so the good man looks upon his goodness as sin so long as it bears no fruit; but when its fruit ripens, then he sees its goodness." And so saying, he uttered the two stanzas in the Scripture Verses:

The sinner thinks the sin is good, So long as it hath ripened not; But when the sin has ripened, then The sinner sees that it was sin!

The good think goodness is but sin, So long as it hath ripened not; But when the good has ripened, then The good man sees that it was good!

And at the conclusion of the verses the Fairy was established in the Fruit of Conversion. And she fell at the wheel-marked feet of the Teacher, and said, "My Lord! lustful, and infidel, and blind as I was, I spake wicked words in my ignorance of your character. Grant me thy pardon!"

Then she obtained pardon both from the Teacher and from the Merchant.

On that occasion Anātha Piṇḍika began to extol his own merit in the Teacher's presence, saying, "My Lord! though this Fairy forbad me to support the Buddha, she could not stop me; and though she forbad me to give