Lives of Alcyone

urning love of his wife overbore his scruples, and the two families
were left entirely free to throw themselves at the feet of the Lord,
Mars stipulated only that his grandson Theo should be left to
succeed to his throne, and the Lord ordered that this should be so.
The effect of this life upon the characters of Alcyone and
Mizar was enormous—as well it might be when they had earned
so great a favour as to be born upon earth at the same time as the
Buddha, and to come under His benign influence. Every vestige of
anger and revenge was wiped from the heart of Alcyone, and the
qualities of compassion, forgiveness and true affection were
developed in him to the utmost. How deep and essential in its nature
was the result produced by this most fortunate of lives may be seen
by the fact that the average interval between his lives has been
entirely altered by it. Before this the average was about seven
hundred years and since then it has been twelve hundred. Mizar too
was powerfully affected, for in the beginning he had had some
scheming and selfishness in his character. Now most of that had
disappeared for ever, and much of earnestness and love had taken
its place, while valuable links had been formed, the result of which
lies yet in the future. In his case, however, the average interval was
not changed, and he therefore does not appear in the forty-eight life.