A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

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that in this life the evil surpasses the good. It has always been so.
Suffering has been the lot of all living things, from the giant of the
primeval swamps down to the smallest zoophyte. It is far more so with
man. Some favored classes in every age may furnish forth a few
individuals who may perhaps lead lives of self-indulgence and luxury;
but to the mass of mankind life has ever been, and must ever be, a
prolonged scene of labor intermingled with suffering. The great Indian
religions, whether Brahmanic or Buddhistic, teach as their cardinal
doctrine that life is an evil. Buddhism is more pronounced in this,
for it teaches more emphatically than even the Kosekin that the chief
end of man is to get rid of the curse of life and gain the bliss of
Nirvana, or annihilation. True, it does not take so practical a form
as among the Kosekin, yet it is believed by one-third of the human
race as the foundation of the religion in which they live and die. We
need not go to the Kosekin, however, for such maxims as these. The
intelligent Hindoos, the Chinese, the Japanese, with many other
nations, all cling firmly to this belief. Sakyamoum Gautama Buddha,
the son and heir of a mighty monarch, penetrated with the conviction
of the misery of life, left his throne, embraced a life of voluntary
poverty, want, and misery, so that he might find his way to a better
state--the end before him being this, that he might ultimately escape
from the curse of existence. He lived till old age, gained innumerable
followers, and left to them as a solemn legacy the maxim that not to
exist is better than to exist; that death is better than life. Since
his day millions of his followers have upheld his principles and lived
his life. Even among the joyous Greeks we find this feeling at times
bursting forth it comes when we least expect it, and not even a
Kosekin poet could express this view more forcibly than Sophocles in
the OEdipus at Colonus:
"'Not to be born surpasses every lot;
And the next best lot by far, when one is born
Is to go back whence he came as soon as possible;
For while youth is present bringing vain follies,
What woes does it not have, what ills does it not bear--
Murders, factions, strife, war, envy,
But the extreme of misery is attained by loathsome old age--
Old age, strengthless, unsociable, friendless,
Where all evils upon evils dwell together.'"
"I'll give you the words of a later poet," said Melick, "who takes