There is nothing in the history and achievements of Christianity which can be considered characteristic of a Religion Divinely revealed for the salvation of mankind.  Originally said to have been communicated to a single nation, specially selected as the peculiar people of God, for whom distinguished privileges were said to be reserved, it was almost unanimously rejected by that nation at the time and it has continued to be repudiated by its descendants, with singular unanimity, to the present day.  After more than eighteen centuries, this Divine scheme of salvation has not obtained even the nominal adhesion of more than a third of the human race, and if, in a census of Christendom, distinction could now be made of those who no longer seriously believe in it as Supernatural Religion, Christianity would take a much lower numerical position.  Sakya Muni, a teacher only second in nobility of character to Jesus, who, like him, proclaimed a system of elevated morality, has even now almost twice the number of followers, although his missionaries never sought converts in the West. [168:1] Considered as a scheme Divinely devised as the best, if not only, mode of redeeming the human race and saving them from eternal damnation, promulgated by God himself incarnate in human form, and completed by his own actual death upon the cross for the sins of the world, such results as these can only be regarded as practical failure, although they may not be disproportionate for a system of elevated morality.

We shall probably never be able to determine how far the great Teacher may through his own speculations or misunderstood spiritual utterances have suggested the supernatural doctrines subsequently attributed to him, and by which his whole history and system soon became transformed; but no one who attentively studies the subject can fail to be struck by the absence of such dogmas from the earlier records of his teaching.  It is to the excited veneration of the followers of Jesus, however, that we owe most of the supernatural elements so characteristic of the age and people.  We may look in vain even in the synoptic Gospels for the doctrines elaborated in the Pauline Epistles and the Gospel of Ephesus.  The great transformation of Christianity was effected by men who had never seen Jesus, and who were only acquainted with his teaching after it had become transmuted by tradition.  The fervid imagination of the East constructed Christian theology.  It is not difficult to follow the development of the creeds of the Church, and it is certainly most instructive to observe the progressive boldness with which its dogmas were expanded by pious enthusiasm.  The New Testament alone represents several stages of dogmatic evolution.  Before his first followers had passed away the process of transformation had commenced.  The disciples, who had so often misunderstood the teaching of Jesus during his life, piously distorted it after his death.  His simple lessons of meekness