t." No one could help being
impressed by these inspiring names. They were the common heritage of
Judaism and Christianity before Islam adopted them, and they are well
calculated to fill the soul with reverence and awe. But there is another
class of names which were predicted by Judaism and rejoiced in by
Christianity, but which Islam rejects; for example, "Messiah,"
"Immanuel," or God with us, "The Son of God," "The Son of Man," "The
Redeemer," "The Elder Brother." In a word, Islam has nothing to fill the
breach between a holy and just God and the conscience-smitten souls of
men. These honored names of Allah are as sublime as the snow-peaks of
the Himalayas and as inaccessible. How can we attain unto them? Without
a Daysman how shall we bridge the abyss that lies between? Even Israel
plead for Moses to speak to them in place of the Infinite, and they
voiced a felt want of all human hearts.

Yet no religious system but Christianity reveals a Mediator. There is in
other faiths no such conception as the fatherhood of God. Though such
names as Dyauspater, Zeuspiter or Jupiter, and others bearing the import
of father are sometimes found, yet they imply only a common source, as
the sun is the source of life. They lack the elements of love and
fostering care. There can be no real fatherhood and no spirit of
adoption except through union with the Son of God. The idea that
re-birth and remission of sin may be followed by adoption and heirship,
and joint heirship with the Son of the Infinite, belongs to the
Christian faith alone; and the hope and inspiration of such a heritage,
seen in contrast with the endless and disheartening prospects of
countless transmigrations, are beyond the power of language to describe.
It was with infinite reason that Paul was taught to regard his work
among the Gentiles as a rescue or a deliverance "from darkness unto
light, and from the power of Satan unto God," and it was a priceless
boon which enabled him to offer at once the full remission of sins and a
part in the glorious inheritance revealed through faith in Christ.

Mere ethical knowledge cannot comfort the human soul. Contrast the gloom
of Marcus Aurelius with the joy of David in Psalm cxix.; and Seneca,
also, with all his discernment, and his eloquent presentation of
beautiful precepts, was one of the saddest, darkest characters of Roman
history. He was the man who schemed with Catiline, and who at the same
time that he wrote epigrams urged