‘THE SACRED BOOKS UF THE HAST. 305 
less lustral washings, incessant purifications, infinite repetitions of 
prayer, painful pilgrimages, arduous ritual, and sacrificial obser- 
vances, all with the one idea of getting rid of sin. All their books 
say so. But do they say that the very men who exhausted every 
invention for the eradication of sin were themselves sinless men 
made sin? Zoroaster, too, and Confucius, and Buddha, and 
Mohammed, one and all, bade men strain every nerve to get rid of ~ 
sin, or at least of the misery of sin, but do their sacred books say 
that they themselves were sinless men made sin? I do not 
presume, as a layman, to interpret the apparently contradictory 
proposition put forth in our Bible that a sinless Man was made 
Sin. All I now contend for is that it stands alone; that it is 
wholly unparalleled; that it is not to be matched by the shade 
of a shadow of a similar declaration in any other book claiming 
to be the exponent of the doctrine of any other religion in the 
world. a ie 
“ Once again, ye youthful students of the so-called Sacred Books 
of the East, search them through and. through, and tell me, do 
they affirm of Vyasa, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, of Buddha, of 
Mohammed, what our Bible affirms of the Founder of Christianity 
—that He, a dead and buried Man, was made life ?—not merely that 
He is the Giver of life, but that he, the dead and buried Man, zs 
Life? ‘I am the Life. ‘When Christ, who is our Life, shall 
appear.’ ‘ He that hath the Son, hath Life.’ Let me remind you, 
too, that the blood is the Life, and that our Sacred Book. adds this 
matchless, this unparalleled, this astounding assertion : ‘Except ye 
_ eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life 
in you.’ Again, I say, 1 am not now presuming to interpret so 
marvellous, so stupendous a statement. All I contend for is that 
it is absolutely unique ; and I defy you to produce the shade of the 
shadow of a similar declaration in any other sacred book of the 
world. And bear in mind that these two matchless, these two 
unparalleled declarations, are closely, are intimately, are indissolubly 
connected with the great central facts and doctrines of our religion : 
the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension of 
Christ. Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, are all 
dead and buried ; and mark this—their flesh is dissolved ; their 
bones have crumbled into dust ; their bodies are extinct. Even 
their followers admit this. Christianity alone commemorates 
_ the passing into the heavens of its divine Founder, not merely in the 
spirit, but in the body, and ‘ with flesh, bones, and all things apper-- 
