But, if so, why should it be put into antagonism with the religions which preceded it? These are also creations of God, not the work of man. Theologians have found multitudes of types of Christ in Jewish books and Jewish history. But they might also find types of Christianity in the so-called heathen religions. For as coming events cast their shadows before, so coming revelations are seen beforehand in shadowy preludes and homologons. The lofty spiritualism of the Brahmanical books, the moral devotion of the Zendavesta, the law of the soul’s progress in Buddhism,—these are all types of what was to appear in a greater fulness and higher development in Christianity. First the natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. But these foregleams of Christian truth, irradiating the night-side of history, are all touching proofs that God never leaves himself without a witness in the world or in human hearts. Instead, therefore, of placing an impassable gulf between Christianity and other human religions, we should consider these are preparations and stepping-stones to something higher. Nor will they pass away until Christianity has purified itself from the errors which still cling to it. Judaism was not to pass till it was fulfilled in Christianity; and neither will the other religions of the world pass away till they also are fulfilled in Christianity. Now, the common teaching in our churches and religious books and newspapers tends to depreciate all natural religion in the interest of revealed religion. It is commonly said that the light of nature helps us a very little way in the knowledge of God. “Look at the heathen,” it is said; “see their religious ignorance, their awful superstitions, their degrading worship of idols, and their subjection to priestcraft. This is your boasted light of nature, and these are its results—the Fetichism of Africa, the devil-worship of the North American Indians, the cannibalism of the Feejee Islands, the human sacrifices of Mexico and of the ancient Phœnicia.” “Then,” it is continued, “look at the observations of the wisest intellects apart from revelation! How little they knew with certainty! Their views of the Deity varied from pantheism to idolatry; their views of immortality were wholly vague and indistinct; their ideas of duty confused and false.”