In the different pagan religions, whether of character gross or learned, we have deifications of the different forces of nature or of men themselves. And even in those religions in which gods in their turn are said to assume man's shape, it is man particularly that is predominant, and that lives in the incarnation of God. {257} Whereas in Christianity, it is not a god sprung from nature or of human origin that becomes man, but the God self-existent, anterior, and superior to all beings, the God, One, Eternal. The Hebrew religion, alone of all religions, shows God essentially and eternally distinct from the nature and the mankind that He has created, and that He governs. The Christian Faith alone shows God one and eternal; the God of Abraham and of Moses making himself man, and the divine nature uniting itself to the human nature in the person of Jesus. And in this union it is the divine nature that shines forth, that speaks, that sets in movement. And this incarnation is unparalleled like the God its author. And why did God make himself man? "What is the object of this unparalleled, this mysterious incarnation? It is God's purpose to rescue man from the evil and the peril which have continued to weigh upon him since the fault committed by his first progenitor. It is God's purpose to ransom the human race from the sin of Adam, the heritage of Adam's children, and to bring it back to the ways of eternal life. These are the designs, loudly proclaimed, of the divine incarnation in Jesus, and the price of all the sufferings and agonies which He endured in its accomplishment. {258} Need I say more? Who does not see how this sublime fact exalts man's dignity at the same time that it illustrates the worth of man's nature? By the mere fact of God having assumed his form is man's nature glorified; and all men, so to say, have their share of the honour done by God to humanity in uniting himself with it, and in accepting, for a moment of time, all the conditions of humanity. But as far as mankind is here concerned, it is far more than a mere accession of an honour or a glorifying of his nature: it is a striking manifestation of the value that all men have in the eyes of God. For it is not for some of them only, for some class or nation, or portion of humanity, it is for all humanity that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ has submitted to all human sufferings. Every human soul is the object of this divine sacrifice, and called upon to gather the fruit. {259}