in God?  A symphony of Beethoven,—­what is it but the same unbounded longing and striving toward the Infinite and Eternal?  The poetry of Wordsworth, of Goethe, Schiller, Dante, Byron, Victor Hugo, Manzoni, all partake of the same element.  It is opposed to classic art and classic poetry in this, that instead of limits, it seeks the unlimited; that is, it believes in spirit, which alone is the unlimited; the infinite, that which is, not that which appears; the essence of things, not their existence or outwardness.

Thus Christianity meets and accepts the truth of Brahmanism.  But how does it fulfil Brahmanism?  The deficiencies of Brahmanism are these,—­that holding to eternity, it omits time, and so loses history.  It therefore is incapable of progress, for progress takes place in time.  Believing in spirit, or infinite unlimited substance, it loses person, or definite substance, whether infinite or finite.  The Christian God is the infinite, definite substance, self-limited or defined by his essential nature.  He is good and not bad, righteous and not the opposite, perfect love, not perfect self-love.  Christianity, therefore, gives us God as a person, and man also as a person, and so makes it possible to consider the universe as order, kosmos, method, beauty, and providence.  For, unless we can conceive the Infinite Substance as definite, and not undefined; that is, as a person with positive characters; there is no difference between good and bad, right and wrong, to-day and to-morrow, this and that, but all is one immense chaos of indefinite spirit.  The moment that creation begins, that the spirit of the Lord moves on the face of the waters, and says, “Let there be light,” and so divides light from darkness, God becomes a person, and man can also be a person.  Things then become “separate and divisible” which before were “huddled and lumped.”

Christianity, therefore, fulfils Brahmanism by adding to eternity time, to the infinite the finite, to God as spirit God as nature and providence.  God in himself is the unlimited, unknown, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; hidden, not by darkness, but by light.  But God, as turned toward us in nature and providence, is the infinite definite substance, that is, having certain defined characters, though these have no bounds as regards extent.  This last view of God Christianity shares with other religions, which differ from Brahmanism in the opposite direction.  For example, the religion of Greece and of the Greek philosophers never loses the definite God, however high it may soar.  While Brahmanism, seeing eternity and infinity, loses time and the finite, the Greek religion, dwelling in time, often loses the eternal and the spiritual.  Christianity is the mediator, able to mediate, not by standing between both, but by standing beside both.  It can lead the Hindoos to an Infinite Friend, a perfect Father, a Divine Providence, and so make the possibility