ered an
undesigned tribute to the great Christian doctrine of a divine and human
mediator: they have given striking evidence of a felt want in all
humanity of a _God with men_. If it was a deeply conscious want of the
human heart which led the heathen of distant India to grope their way
from the cheerless service of remorseless deities to one who could be
touched with a feeling of their infirmities, and could walk these
earthly paths as a counsellor by their side, how striking is the analogy
to essential Christian truth!

Let us examine some of the alleged parallels. They may be divided into
three classes:

1. Those which are merely fanciful. Nine-tenths of the whole number are
of this class. They are such as would never occur to a Hindu on hearing
the gospel truth. Only one who had examined the two records in the keen
search for parallels, and whose wish had been the father of his thought,
would have seen any resemblance. I shall not occupy much time with
these.

2. Those resemblances which are only accidental. It may be an accident
of similar circumstances or similar causes; it may be a chance
resemblance in the words employed, while there is no resemblance in the
thoughts expressed.

3. Those coincidences which spring from natural causes. For an example
of these, the closing chapter of the Apocalypse speaks of Christ as "the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." It is a natural
expression to indicate his supreme power and glory as Creator and final
Judge of all things. In a similar manner Krishna is made to say, "I am
Beginning, Middle, End, Eternal Time, the Birth and the Death of all. I
am the symbol A among the characters. I have created all things out of
one portion of myself." There are two meanings in Krishna's words. He is
in all things pantheistically, and he is the first and best of all
things. In the tenth chapter he names with great particularity sixty-six
classes of things in which he is always the first: the first of
elephants, horses, trees, kings, heroes, etc. "Among letters I am the
vowel A." "Among seasons I am spring." "Of the deceitful I am the dice."

The late Dr. Mullens calls attention to the fact that the Orphic Hymns
declare "Zeus to be the first and Zeus the last. Zeus is the head and
Zeus the centre." In these three similar forms of description one common
principle of supremacy rules. The difference is that in the Christian
revelation and in the Orphic Hymns there is dignity