in the dim robing-rooms of foreign churches are kept rich
stores of sacred vestments, ready to be thrown over every successive
generation of priests, so the world has kept in memory the same
stately traditions to decorate each new Messiah. He is predicted by
prophecy, hailed by sages, born of a virgin, attended by miracle,
borne to heaven without tasting death, and with promise of return.
Zoroaster and Confucius have no human father. Osiris is the Son of
God, he is called the Revealer of Life and Light; he first teaches one
chosen race; he then goes with his apostles to teach the Gentiles,
conquering the world by peace; he is slain by evil powers; after death
he descends into hell, then rises again, and presides at the last
judgment of all mankind: those who call upon his name shall be saved.
Buddha is born of a virgin; his name means the Word, the Logos, but he
is known more tenderly as the Saviour of Man; he embarrasses his
teachers, when a child, by his understanding and his answers; he is
tempted in the wilderness, when older; he goes with his apostles to
redeem the world; he abolishes caste and cruelty, and teaches
forgiveness; he receives among his followers outcasts whom Pharisaic
pride despises, and he only says, "My law is a law of mercy to all."
Slain by enemies, he descends into hell, rising without tasting death,
and still lives to make intercession for man.

These are the recognized properties of religious tradition; the
beautiful garments belong not to the individual, but the race. It is
the drawback on all human greatness that it makes itself deified. Even
of Jesus it was said sincerely by the Platonic philosopher Porphyry,
"That noble soul, who has ascended into heaven, has by a certain
fatality become an occasion of error." The inequality of gifts is a
problem not yet solved, and there is always a craving for some miracle
to explain it. Men set up their sublime representatives as so many
spiritual athletes, and measure them. "See, this one is six inches
taller; those six inches prove him divine." But because men surpass
us, or surpass everybody, shall we hold them separate from the race?
Construct the race as you will, somebody must stand at the head, in
virtue as in intellect. Shall we deify Shakespeare? Because we may
begin upon his treasury of wisdom almost before we enjoy any other
book, and can hold to it longer, and read it all our lives, from those
earnest moments when we demand the very core of