e slain Osiris of the Egyptians
was said to enter into the sufferings of mortals. "Having suffered the
great wound," so the record runs, "he was wounded in every other wound."
And we read in "The Book of the Dead" that "when the Lord of truth
cleanses away defilement, evil is joined to the deity that the truth may
expel the evil."[179] This seems to denote an idea of vicarious
righteousness.

The Onondaga Indians had a tradition that the celestial Hiawatha
descended from heaven and dwelt among their ancestors, and that upon the
establishment of the League of the Iroquois he was called by the Great
Spirit to sanctify that League by self-sacrifice. As the Indian council
was about to open, Hiawatha was bowed with intense suffering, which
faintly reminds one of Christ's agony in Gethsemane. He foresaw that his
innocent and only child would be taken from him. Soon after a messenger
from heaven smote her to the earth by his side. Then, having drank this
cup of sorrow, he entered the council and guided its deliberations with
superhuman wisdom.[180] In citing this incident nothing more is intended
than to call attention to some of the mysterious conceptions which seem
to float dimly through the minds of the most savage races, and which
show at the very least that the idea of vicarious sacrifice is not
strange to mankind, but is often mysteriously connected with their
greatest blessings. The legend of "Prometheus Bound," as we find it in
the tragedies of AEschylus, is so graphic in its picture of vicarious
suffering for the good of men that infidel writers have charged the
story of the Cross with plagiarism, and have applied to Prometheus some
of the expressions used in the fifty-third chapter of the Prophecy of
Isaiah. We are often told that there is injustice in the very idea of
vicarious suffering, as involved in the Christian doctrine of salvation,
or that the best instincts of a reasonable humanity revolt against it.
But such criticisms are sufficiently met by these analogies which we
find among all nations.

Let me next call attention to some of the predicted deliverers for whom
the nations have been looking. Nothing found in the study of the
religious history of mankind is more striking than the universality of a
vague expectation of coming messiahs. According to the teachings of
Hinduism there have been nine incarnations of Vishnu, of whom Buddha was
admitted to be one. But there is to be a tenth avatar who shall yet co