“Granting Him, therefore, these attributes (and it is both blasphemous and unreasonable to deny him those virtues which distinguish the best of men), it is easily understood how He, the All-Fair Beneficent Ruler of the Central Sphere, perceiving the long distance to which the Earth was propelled, like a ball flung too far out, from the glory of His Electric Ring, saw also that the creatures He had made in His image were in danger of crushing that image completely out, and with it all remembrance of Him, in the fatal attention they gave to their merely earthly surroundings, lacking, as they did, and not possessing sufficient energy to seek, electric attraction.  In brief, this Earth and God’s World were like America and Europe before the Atlantic Cable was laid.  Now the messages of goodwill flash under the waves, heedless of the storms.  So also God’s Cable is laid between us and His Heaven in the person of Christ.

“For ages (always remembering that our ages are with God a moment) the idea of worship was in the mind of man.  With this idea came also the sentiment of propitiation.  The untamed savage has from time immemorial instinctively felt the necessity of looking up to a Being greater than Himself, and also of seeking a reconciliation with that Being for some fault or loss in himself which he is aware of, yet cannot explain.  This double instinct—­worship and propitiation—­is the key-note of all the creeds of the world, and may be called God’s first thought of the cable to be hereafter laid—­a lightning-thought which He instilled into the human race to prepare it, as one might test a telegraph-wire from house to house, before stretching it across a continent.

“All religions, as known to us, are mere types of Christianity.  It is a notable fact that some of the oldest and most learned races in the world, such as the Armenians and Chaldeans, were the first to be convinced of the truth of Christ’s visitation.  Buddhism, of which there are so many million followers, is itself a type of Christ’s teaching; only it lacks the supernatural element.  Buddha died a hermit at the age of eighty, as any wise and ascetic man might do to-day.  The death and resurrection of Christ were widely different.  Anyone can be a Buddha again; anyone can not be a Christ.  That there are stated to be more followers of Buddhism than of Christianity is no proof of any efficacy in the former or lack of power in the latter.  Buddhists help to swell that very large class of persons who prefer a flattering picture to a plain original; or who, sheep-like by nature, finding themselves all together in one meadow, are too lazy, as well as too indifferent, to seek pastures fresher and fairer.

“Through the divine influence of an Electric Thought, then, the world unconsciously grew to expect something—­they knew not what.  The old creeds of the world, like sunflowers, turned towards that unknown Sun; the poets, prophets, seers, all spoke of some approaching consolation and glory; and to this day the fated Jews expect it, unwilling to receive as their Messiah the Divine Martyr they slew, though their own Scriptures testify to His identity.