be found scattered through the ten religions of the world, some here and some there. Jesus claims no monopoly of the truth. He says, "My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me." But he does call himself "the Light of the World," and says that though he does not come to destroy either the law or the prophets, he comes to fulfil them in something higher. His work is to fulfil all religions with something higher, broader, and deeper than what they have, accepting their truth, supplying their deficiencies. If this is a fact, then it will appear that Christianity comes, not as an exclusive, but as an inclusive system. It includes everything, it excludes nothing but limitation and deficiency. Whether Christianity be really such a pleroma of truth or not, must be ascertained by a careful comparison of its teachings, and the ideas lying back of them, with those of all other religions. We have attempted this, to some extent, in our Introduction, and in our discussion of each separate religion. We have seen that Christianity, in converting the nations, always accepted something and gave something in return. Thus it received from Egypt and Africa their powerful realism, as in the writings of Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, and gave in return a spiritual doctrine. It received God, as seen in nature and its organizations, and returned God as above nature. Christianity took from Greece intellectual activity, and returned moral life. It received from Rome organization, and returned faith in a fatherly Providence. It took law, and gave love. From the German races it accepted the love of individual freedom, and returned union and brotherly love. From Judaism it accepted monotheism as the worship of a Supreme Being, a Righteous Judge, a Holy King, and added to this faith in God as in all nature and all life. But we will proceed to examine some of these points a little more minutely. §3. Christianity, as a Pleroma, compared with Brahmanism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Christianity and Brahmanism. The essential value of Brahmanism is its faith in spirit as distinct from matter, eternity as distinct from time, the infinite as opposed to the finite, substance as opposed to form. The essential defect of Brahmanism is its spiritual pantheism, which denies all reality to this world, to finite souls, to time, space, matter. In its vast unities all varieties are swallowed up, all differences come to an end. It does not, therefore, explain the world, it denies it. It is incapable of morality, for morality assumes the eternal distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, and Brahmanism knows no such difference. It is incapable of true worship, since its real God is spirit in itself, abstracted from all attributes. Instead of immortality, it can only teach absorption, or the disappearance of the soul in spirit, as rain-drops disappear in the ocean. Christianity teaches a Supreme Being who is pure spirit," above all, through all, and in all," "from whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things," "in whom we live, and move, and have our being." It is a more spiritual religion than Brahmanism, for the latter has passed on into polytheism and idolatry, which Christianity has always escaped. Yet while teaching faith in a Supreme Being, the foundation and substance below all existence, it recognizes him as A LIVING GOD. He is not absorbed in himself, nor apart from his world, but a perpetual Providence, a personal Friend and Father. He dwells in eternity, but is manifested in time. Christianity, therefore, meets the truth in Brahmanism by its doctrine of God as Spirit, and supplies its deficiencies by its doctrine of God as a Father. Christianity and the system of Confucius. The good side in the teaching of Confucius is his admirable morality, his wisdom of life in its temporal limitations, his reverence for the past, his strenuous conservatism of all useful institutions, and the uninterrupted order of the social system resting on these ideas. The evil in his teaching is the absence of the supernatural element, which deprives the morality of China of enthusiasm, its social system of vitality, its order of any progress, and its conservatism of any improvement. It is a system without hope, and so has remained frozen in an icy and stiff immobility for fifteen hundred years. But Christianity has shown itself capable of uniting conservatism with progress, in the civilization of Christendom. It respects order, reveres the past, holds the family sacred, and yet is able also to make continual progress in science, in art, in literature, in the comfort of the whole community. It therefore accepts the good and the truth in the doctrines of Confucius, and adds to these another element of new life. Christianity and Buddhism. The truth in Buddhism is in its doctrine of the relation of the soul to the laws of nature; its doctrine of consequences; its assurance of a strict retribution for every human action; its promise of an ultimate salvation in consequence of good works; and of a redemption from all the woes of time by obedience to the truth. The evil in the system is that belonging to all legalism. It does not inspire faith in any living and present God, or any definite immortality. The principle, therefore, of development is wanting, and it leaves the Mongol races standing on a low plane of civilization, restraining them from evil, but not inspiring them by the sight of good. Christianity, like Buddhism, teaches that whatever a man sows that shall he also reap; that those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality shall receive eternal life; that the books shall be opened in the last day, and every man be rewarded according to his works; that he whose pound gains five pounds shall be ruler over five cities. In short, Christianity, in its Scriptures and its practical influence, has always taught salvation by works. It Yet, beside this, Christianity teaches justification by faith, as the root and fountain of all real obedience. inspires faith in a Heavenly Father who has loved his every child from before the foundation of the world; who welcomes the sinner back when he repents and returns; whose forgiving love creates a new life in the heart. This faith evermore tends to awaken the dormant energies in the soul of man; and so, under its influence, one race after another has commenced a career of progress. Christianity, therefore, can fulfil Buddhism also. § 4. Christianity compared with the Avesta and the Eddas. The Duad in all Religions. The essential truth in the Avesta and the Eddas is the same. They both recognize the evil in the world as real, and teach the duty of fighting against it. They avoid the pantheistic indifference of Brahmanism, and the absence of enthusiasm in the systems of Confucius and the Buddha, by the doctrine of a present conflict between the powers of good and evil, of light and of darkness. This gives dignity and moral earnestness to both systems. By fully admitting the freedom of man, they make the sense of responsibility possible, and so purify and feed morality at its roots. The difficulty with both is, that they carry this dualistic view of nature too far, leaving it an unreconciled dualism. The supreme Monad is lost sight of in this ever-present Duad. Let us see how this view of evil, or the dual element in life, appears in other systems. As the Monad in religion is an expression of one infinite supreme presence, pervading all nature and life, so the Duad shows the antagonism and conflict between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, good and evil, the infinite perfection and the finite imperfection. This is a conflict actually existing in the world, and one which religion must accept and account for. Brahmanism does not accept it, but ignores it. This whole conflict is Maya, a deception and illusion. Yet, in this form of illusion, it makes itself so far felt, that it must be met by sacrifices, prayers, penances, and the law of transmigration; until all the apparent antagonism shall be swallowed up in the Infinite One, the only substance in the universe. Buddhism recognizes the conflict more fully. It frankly accepts the Duad as the true explanation of the actual universe. The ideal universe as Nirvana may be one; but of this we know nothing. The actual world is a twofold world, composed of souls and the natural laws. The battle of life is with these laws. Every soul, by learning to obey them, is able to conquer and use them, as steps in an ascent toward Nirvana. of existing things. - But the belief of Zoroaster and that of Scandinavia re- . gard the Duad as still more deeply rooted in the essence All life is battle, battle with moral or physical evil. Courage is therefore the chief virtue in both systems. The Devil first appears in theology in these two forms of faith. The Persian devil is Ahriman ; the Scandinavian devil is Loki. Judaism, with its absolute and supreme God, could never admit such a rival to his power as the Persian Ahriman; yet as a being permitted, for wise purposes, to tempt and try men, he comes into their system as Satan. Satan, on his first appearance in the Book of Job, is one of the angels of God. He is the heavenly critic; his business is to test human virtue by trial, and see how deep it goes. His object in testing Job was to find whether he loved virtue for its rewards, or for its own sake. "Does Job serve God for naught? According to this view, the man who is good merely for the sake of reward is not good at all. In the Egyptian system, as in the later faith of India, the evil principle appears as a power of destruction. Siva and Typhon are the destroying agencies from whom proceed all the mischief done in the world. Nevertheless, they are gods, not devils, and have their worship and worshippers among those whose religious nature is more imbued with fear than with hope. The timid worshipped the deadly and destructive powers, and their prayers were deprecations. The bolder worshipped the good gods. Similarly, in Greece, the Chtonic deities had their shrines and worshippers, as had the powers of Blight, Famine, and Pestilence at Rome. Yet only in the Avesta is this great principle of evil set forth in full antagonism against the powers of light Fr |