But this has, nevertheless, been the tendency of the human mind. You will see in the study of the moral life, that there is ever an attempt to exalt the one at the expense of the other, to rely on the one to the exclusion of the other.

This was very visible when our Lord was preaching to the multitudes in Judæa. What strikes us more in the Gospels than the apparent reliance on the forms of religion, while there is the neglect of the ordinary every-day duties? What did our Lord more vigorously denounce than hypocrisy, the separation of the outward acts of devotion from the life of virtue and moral obligation? The twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel is a terrible denunciation of this spirit and life which were so visible in Judæa. It was the very characteristic of the Jews at that time. Their religion was without life. It did not inspire them with justice, benevolence, truth, and purity. You see in the Gospels an adherence to certain rites and forms of religion, but you do not see the life which those rites symbolized. Even in the case of the Pharisee, who can thank God that he is not an extortioner, or unjust, or an adulterer, yet there are other moral virtues which he had not cultivated, and which do not characterize his life. It was the great contrast and the beauty of our Lord's life, that it did exhibit all the virtues which can adorn and dignify our human life. His

divine life was a perfect picture of virtue,

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of duty

and moral obligation. His life was the constant rebuke to the men of Judæa, and which constantly excited their envy and their indignation.

The Epistles of St. Paul, also, are remarkable for the clear and distinct inculcation of the moral life. The religion of redemption, which is taught in the Epistle to the Ephesians, leads to the moral life; and the apostle, therefore, sets forth that life as the sequence of what he had said of redemption and grace. The moral virtues must be cultivated, and they will grow under such light and power as come from the redemption of Christ. The New Testament is certainly celebrated for its morality. It imposes the most beautiful moral life on the followers of Christ. And it shows them, that having believed, having been regenerated, renewed, and made partakers of His grace, this life must follow all the virtues must be cultivated, and grow, and be exhibited.

The differentia of Christianity, as a religion, is redemption and grace. This is what the Bible reveals. It is not in any proper sense a "Republication of the Religion of Nature," but it is the revelation of a supernatural work, the reconciliation of God and man, and the appointment of means for the restoration of man to the life of justice, benevolence, truth, purity, and obedience. It is universal redemption,

but it is the particular application of the power of grace. All the race is redeemed; but only each individual, who believes, is made a partaker of regenerated life, and the grace of renewal. This is the Christian religion. It is not its definition that it is a better teacher of morality, or that it presents a more sublime moral life. That it does present such a life, has called forth the eulogiums of deists. But that is only the result of its divine power, only because it presents Christ as the life of God in the human soul. The Christian religion differs from all other religions in this respect, that it presents Christ as reconciling God and man, and as being the fountain of grace, as being the fountain of divine power to man. That divine power, that grace, restores man, new creates him, develops again the image of God, again places the conscience on the throne, and brings the whole man into subjection to the divine law of morality.

It is this which men are so slow to see. They do not see in what respect it is that the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation." It was in this respect that the heathen, when they first came into contact with the gospel, did not see its power, and what it had to give to man. Thus, Origen' reports Celsus as saying that the gospel is "only common to us with the philosophers, and no venerable and new 1 Origen against Celsus, book 1, chap. iv. Edinburgh Tr.

branch of instruction." Men like Celsus found a system of morality in Aristotle, in Cicero, and in the historians and poets, such as the gospel inculcated; and they supposed that this was all. They supposed that this constituted the religion which Christ came to establish. They did not understand that it had the system of morality which was common to all religions, and that in particular it gave the power to perform these moral duties which other religions did not give. They did not see what was the real differentia of this religion.

And the same objection has come into special view in our day. Our increased means of communication has brought us into contact with the Buddhist morality of the East. It has attracted the attention of mere philosophers, who have looked only at the moral system, at the inculcation of the moral virtues, and they have seen what may in a large measure be read in common in the Bible and in Cicero; and they have asked in what respect this system differed from the gospel. It is certainly a remarkable circumstance, that in our day the Buddhist system has been presented to admiring audiences in Boston and in Chicago, and presented in such a way that men have asked a place for it by the side of Christianity. This Eastern system has been so presented, that it has become necessary to do to-day just what Origen did with Celsus. Books have been

written in defence of Christianity in opposition to Buddhism. A work of Professor Monier Williams was criticised, in one of our New-York journals, by a writer who says that, "It would be nearer the truth to say, not that the three Indian religions were false, but that they are imperfectly true. Here, for example," he says, "are some passages which seem to be paraphrases from the Gospels ;" and then he goes on to quote the inculcation of duties which every religion inculcates, which are read in every code of morals. And he claims a place for this religion by the side of Christianity. Like the Philistines, he would bring the Ark of God "into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon" (1 Sam. v. 2). He saw a moral system, which was common in a large measure to them both, and he therefore supposed that they were identical. He did not recognize the gospel as "the power of God," as having made reconciliation for man, and as giving the grace which will alone impart the ability to live the life of morality. A writer in a village paper, also, after having heard a sermon in his church on Sunday, which inculcated faith and devotion, says that, "He cannot be a bad man who does his duty to his fellow-man.” Here again is only an example of the manner in

The Light of Asia and the Light of the World: A Comparison of the Legend, the Doctrine, and the Ethics of the Buddha with the Story, the Doctrine, and the Ethics of Christ. By S. H. Kellogg, D.D.