ld, some here and some
there. Jesus claims no monopoly of the truth. He says. "My doctrine is not
mine, but his who sent me." But he _does_ call himself "the Light of the
World," and says that though he does not come to destroy either the law or
the prophets, he comes to fulfil them in something higher. His work is to
fulfil all religions with something higher, broader, and deeper than what
they have,--accepting their truth, supplying their deficiencies.

If this is a fact, then it will appear that Christianity comes, not as an
exclusive, but as an inclusive system. It includes everything, it excludes
nothing but limitation and deficiency.

Whether Christianity be really such a pleroma of truth or not, must be
ascertained by a careful comparison of its teachings, and the ideas lying
back of them, with those of all other religions. We have attempted this,
to some extent, in our Introduction, and in our discussion of each
separate religion. We have seen that Christianity, in converting the
nations, always accepted something and gave something in return. Thus it
received from Egypt and Africa their powerful realism, as in the writings
of Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, and gave in return a spiritual doctrine.
It received God, as seen in nature and its organizations, and returned God
as above nature. Christianity took from Greece intellectual activity, and
returned moral life. It received from Rome organization, and returned
faith in a fatherly Providence. It took law, and gave love. From the
German races it accepted the love of individual freedom, and returned
union and brotherly love. From Judaism it accepted monotheism as the
worship of a Supreme Being, a Righteous Judge, a Holy King, and added to
this faith in God as in all nature and all life.

But we will proceed to examine some of these points a little more
minutely.

Sec. 3. Christianity, as a Pleroma, compared with Brahmanism, Confucianism,
and Buddhism.

Christianity and Brahmanism. The essential value of Brahmanism is its
faith in spirit as distinct from matter, eternity as distinct from time,
the infinite as opposed to the finite, substance as opposed to form.

The essential defect of Brahmanism is its spiritual pantheism, which
denies all reality to this world, to finite souls, to time, space, matter.
In its vast unities all varieties are swallowed up, all differences come
to an end. It does not, therefore, explain the world, it denies it. It is
inca