Page:The Praises of Amida, 1907.djvu/130

 good as they might be. Nay: they will some times make a strange amount of fuss over some petty detail in the management, and let some trifling matter be the seed from which they raise quite an abundant crop of quarrelling and strife, of party spirit and anger, of rancour and malice. You will not be astonished to hear that, side by side with these discontented spirits, there are some guests who are always laughing about nothing at all. Are we to be moved to tears, or to smiles, by this strange spectacle? It is hard to say.

2. Now among these guests there are some others who exhibit neither wisdom nor virtue in their conduct. They have hitherto been just rude country people, with uncouth rustic manners, living purposeless lives in some out-of-the-way hamlet; but they have now received the Tathāgata's invitation through His Name, and have set out on their journey with their faces turned towards the City of Light. These men are resting in the Inn, and they rejoice, as for one and another the time approaches to enter the