As ivy clings for the support and stay it wants to a rough-hewn post,
everywhere conforming to its irregularities and showing their outline,
but at the same time covering them with life and grace, and changing the
former aspect into one that is pleasing to the eye; so the Christian
faith, sprung from the wisdom of India, overspreads the old trunk of
rude Judaism, a tree of alien growth; the original form must in part
remain, but it suffers a complete change and becomes full of life and
truth, so that it appears to be the same tree, but is really another.

Judaism had presented the Creator as separated from the world, which he
produced out of nothing. Christianity identifies this Creator with the
Saviour, and through him, with humanity: he stands as their
representative; they are redeemed in him, just as they fell in Adam, and
have lain ever since in the bonds of iniquity, corruption, suffering and
death. Such is the view taken by Christianity in common with Buddhism;
the world can no longer be looked at in the light of Jewish optimism,
which found "all things very good": nay, in the Christian scheme, the
devil is named as its Prince or Ruler ([Greek: ho archon tou
kosmoutoutou.] John 12, 33). The world is no longer an end, but a means:
and the realm of everlasting joy lies beyond it and the grave.
Resignation in this world and direction of all our hopes to a better,
form the spirit of Christianity. The way to this end is opened by the
Atonement, that is the Redemption from this world and its ways. And in
the moral system, instead of the law of vengeance, there is the command
to love your enemy; instead of the promise of innumerable posterity, the
assurance of eternal life; instead of visiting the sins of the fathers
upon the children to the third and fourth generations, the Holy Spirit
governs and overshadows all.

We see, then, that the doctrines of the Old Testament are rectified and
their meaning changed by those of the New, so that, in the most
important and essential matters, an agreement is brought about between
them and the old religions of India. Everything which is true in
Christianity may also be found in Brahmanism and Buddhism. But in
Hinduism and Buddhism you will look in vain for any parallel to the
Jewish doctrines of "a nothing quickened into life," or of "a world made
in time," which cannot be humble enough in its thanks and praises to
Jehovah for an ephemeral existence full of misery, anguish and need