d, these
two standpoints from which the Godhead is conceived account for the
deepest divergencies of Hindu and Christian philosophy and theology.

II

_The Hindu and Christian Conceptions of Incarnation are similarly
Divergent_

Incarnation is a fundamental doctrine of the religion of Jesus. It is
also an overshadowing tenet of modern Hinduism. For this reason, the
Christian missionary finds in this doctrine the best leverage
wherewith to raise the Hindu to our faith. Yet at this very point his
efforts are largely frustrated by the very different conceptions which
obtain in the two religions. The Christian incarnation must be, and
is, first of all, of a perfect ethical type--an ideal of transcendent
moral beauty and spiritual excellence. The least flaw or crookedness
in His character would vitiate His pretensions, and would be the
death-blow to the doctrine of His incarnation and divinity. In
Hinduism, on the other hand, moral criteria have no application to
the "descents" or incarnations of Vishnu. To his three first
incarnations (of the fish, the tortoise, and the boar), moral tests
are, of course, out of place; nor are they any more applicable to the
grossly sensual Krishna, who is the only "full" incarnation of the
god, and who is the supremely popular modern incarnation of the Hindu
pantheon. Hindus have never dreamt of squaring the "going" of their
incarnations with ethical demands and standards.

Whatsoever of good Vishnu, in his descent, is said to have come to
achieve in the world, it certainly was not a moral or a spiritual
good. So an appeal to the moral excellence, or to the atoning work and
purpose, of the Christ does not, at first, in any way impress them as
an argument for His divine character or heavenly origin, any more than
the moral obliquity of their own "descents" argues to the contrary.

Moreover, the Hindu conception of incarnation largely resembles the
Jewish. It must be a triumphant descent. Vishnu, in all his
incarnations, came to destroy rather than to suffer himself to be put
to death. A suffering and a dying god is to-day, to the Hindu, what it
was twenty centuries ago to the Jew and Greek--a stumbling-block and a
foolishness. It is true that Buddha, who was in more recent times
adopted as an incarnation, in order to win over to modern Hinduism the
followers of his faith, is somewhat of an exception to this rule. But
not, according to the Hindu interpretation of it.

So the two ele