mortals, we, who are plunged in misery pray to thee, august divinity be our refuge." "Speak," replies Vishnu, "What shall I do ?" Having heard the words of the ineffable, all the gods answered, "There is a king who has embraced a life of severe penitence; he has even performed the sacrifice of an açwa-medha, because he is childless, and prays heaven to accord him a son; he is steadfast in piety, praised for his virtues, justice is his character, and truth his word. Acquiesce then, O Vishnu, in our demand, and consent to be born as his son." "Once incarnate, what would you have me do; and whence comes the terror that troubles you?" "Take upon you a human body, and draw out this thorn from the world, for none but you among the inhabitants of heaven can destroy this sinner, or the demon Ravana, the desolater of worlds, and the inspirer of terror among us." Now, far be it from us to compare the incarnation of Vishnu, or of any other oriental god, with the incarnation of Christ; for all the Eastern incarnations, by reason of their multiplicity alone, are in their idea necessarily pantheistic; and in them the human personality is destitute of reality, since it is assumed and set aside as a veil or mask with which the divinity for the time being was clothed. Besides, the incarnations of the Orientals were carried too far; for, as their own priests tell us, "they descended to evil, and participated in human corruption;" and just so soon as the object for which they became incarnate was accomplished, returning to the skies from whence they came, they would become re-absorbed into the great spirit of the universe. But, with all their imperfections, was there not, likewise, in them an exhibition of the same necessity? nay, so far as the people thought, in the incarnation of Vishnu, or even in later avatarás, a fulfillment of their expectations? Indeed, so soon as the so-called incarnation of Vishnu was proclaimed, many a good old Hindoo Simeon must have exclaimed, as was so truthfully said in the temple of old of the real incarnate One, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people." In truth the

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Hindoo belief was simply this: Man is a sinner, and because of this his sinfulness, he has become separated from Brahma, the spirit of all spirits, the god of light and love, and in whose embrace it is, where perfect happiness alone can be found. But can not Brahma, or "I am that which is," the god of all, my creator, be reconciled to me? Can I never return to the bosom from whence I sprang? last to be absorbed in the divine essence? Yes, and how? There shall be an avatará, and by the divine thus identifying himself with the human, a way shall be opened for the return demanded. And yet, let it not be forgotten, that the incarnations found in the Hindoo theology are worthless from their participation in human corruption; and so being imperfect they lack that very link without which no incarnation, whatever be its end, can be either godlike or divine.

And what was true of the people of India, and of Indian theology, what they held and expected, was held and expected, likewise, by the Tartars and Thibeteans; and the same also did their books and priests teach. For India being settled by colonists from Tartary, it was but natural that the Indian faith should be as was the faith of those from whom they sprang. In fact, the religion of the early Indian was simply the old religion of the Tartars revamped. And, it is believed, also, that could the whole truth here be known, it would be found that just so far as these same colonists, by their corruptions, had departed from their early faith, or lost sight of it in its reconstruction in India, just so far became obscured the promises of a coming Deliverer, of whom they must have had some knowledge, as it was within her boundaries where a portion of the race was cradled. The Thibetean doctrine of hereditary incarnations was no new fact, nor the fancy of an unsettled mind. On the other hand, it was simply the final development of a previous existing belief; an early faith reclothed and adapted to the condition and temper of those I who felt its need.

And to these Asiatic countries can be added China. As it was also settled by colonists brought up in Central Asia, it would be strange were there not found in their religion

some traces, if not direct allusions to, that same fact which the parent religion more or less directly taught. It is admitted that, in their system as laid down by Confucius, and explained by his admirer and defender, the great doctrines of God's personality, original sin, regeneration, and a future life as an individual life, are for the most part ignored; and that there is given to the worship of genii, demons and heroes, a prominence which justly characterizes them as idolaters. Yet the incarnation of Laosse, or Laotse, was regarded by many as identical with him who, under different aspects, is the "incomprehensible non-being." By many, this Laosse was viewed just as was Vishnu by the Brahmins. Man has not been forever debarred communion with his Creator, nor has the race been hopelessly abandoned. Since sin has been committed, sorrow is the inheritance of the world; yet there is such a thing as God speaking to men, and men speaking to God. Reconciliation to God is not an impossibility. The Great Being, though incomprehensible, is able to reveal himself; and in a way which, while it preserves his nature, will manifest also his sympathy for his creatures.

And what seems to have been true of the Orientals, seems likewise to have been true of the Occidentals. The only ray of light that came to the Aztec, as he sat musing in his wondrous temple, and of the American in the far North, as he pushed his canoe over some placid lake, or when weary from the chase, was the hope of the coming of a gracious spirit, whose mission would be to crush the bonds by which they were enslaved. Recent investigations into the earliest inhabitants of Mexico show beyond question, by reason of their similarity in arts and manners with both the Egyptians and Phoenicians, that they are of one common Hamite origin. And perhaps, of all the creeds of the early peoples, that of the Mexicans was the simplest. In form it resembled a patriarchial deism, though, at the same time, it contained some few varieties of symbolic representation. And hence, just as with the parent creed, so with them. In the contest of the two powers, good and evil, for the mastery, the chief god, whether known as Adoni-Siris, Horus, Hercule, Balden, Ormazes, was finally to plant his

heel upon the crushed head of the serpent of evil, whether known as Typhon, or Saturn, or Ahriman, and give the deliverance to the race for which it so eagerly longed. In fact, the Tultecan nation but re-echoed what the old Persian priests taught.

And so, were one to probe other religions, and seek for their electral wires, or ask for their life and the root of their power. Much is said of the force of the old Egyptian religion, and the hold it had upon the race. Was not the truth which lay at its foundation the like expectation of a Deliverer; even the descending of Osiris to hell to subdue the prince of evil, that humanity might be freed from the consequence of its guilt? The Egyptian theologian taught simply what tradition had preserved, and what also was so generally blended with the creeds of other nations. And the northern tribes of Europe, both Scandinavians and Teutones, under their description of the combats of Thor with Lokke, the seducer to sin, and his final victory over the being in whom death is personified, seemingly, at least, suggest the same expectation as their more distant descendants. And the old Goths, when they speak of "Sons of God," is it not a note of the same general anthem? Does not this one expectation, in truth, seem to be the teaching of every religion with which the world has been made familiar, and which has ever assumed any distinct or philosophic form? It may be said, indeed, that the one great doctrine which all the early religions seemed to teach, was this: that an incarnation was the fittest outcoming of the glory of God; and while it was thus the only method by which man could be redeemed, it was the only method, also, by which God could manifest his real nature and purpose. In short, behind or at the foundation of all the idolatries of the world, there lay the common, nay, universal belief, that it was through flesh, and that flesh the flesh of man, that God could be seen in his noblest character; since it was in that character that he was to be seen, when he should appear as the Redeemer of the race. Humanity as humanity has erred; but never, let it be proclaimed, as to the general

method by which salvation was to visit the world. It has held religion, as has been well said, and rightly said, "to be not a mere communication of ideas concerning the divinity, nor an exhibition of any of the peculiar powers of the divinity, rather as a solemn effort to reunite the broken bond between God and man, the offended and the sufferer; and to restore the latter to that blessedness for which he was originally fashioned.” Religion's great end is the recovery of fallen man, through man; but that man is to be associated with and clothed with the power of God.

ART. VI.-MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION SERMONS,
ON "THE GREAT REVIVAL."

By REV. E. H. GILLETT, D. D.

THERE can be no question that for a long period antecedent to the Great Revival of the last century, the cause of vital piety in this land had been steadily declining. This was the case emphatically among the New England churches, and unquestionably the extravagances which in numerous instances characterized the revival, were due to the creation of popular feeling promoted by the security, formalism and worldliness which hedged about "the standing order."

The Revival came, almost in suddenness and startling effect like an earthquake shock. The doctrines of grace, and the necessity of that transformation which they were designed to produce, were presented by the revival preachers with such freshness and force, as to carry with them almost the weight of a new revelation. Yet they were simply the old doctrines of the New England fathers revived, and vindicating in the experience of men their divine power.

The process by which, for long years antecedent, they had, under the forms of dead orthodoxy, been bereft of their power, had not been unnoted. Aged ministers, with memories that carried them back to a brighter period, had uttered their lament, as they spelled out Ichabod on the walls of the