The Indian Yedas are full of alleged prophecies relating to coming incarnations, and so are the Chinese sacred books. Even Zoroaster, who lived 570 years b. c., prophesied; “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and a star shall appear blazing at midday to announce his appearance. When you behold the star (said he), follow it whithersoever it leads you. Adore the mysterious child, offering him gifts with profound humility. He is indeed the Almighty Word which created the heavens. He is indeed your Lord and everlasting King” (_History of Idolatry_, Faber, vol. ii. p. 92). It was believed that this prophecy was fulfilled by the advent of the Persian god _Sosia_. It was common among the ancients to presage the birth of a god by the appearance of a mysterious star, and for astronomers to hasten to adore the new-born deity and present him gifts. Greece, Rome, Arabia, and even Mexico, were all familiar with _Messianic_ prophecies. Bishop Hawes says that “the idea that God should in some extraordinary manner visit and dwell with men is found in a thousand forms among ancient heathens.” The fact is, there is no promise or prophecy of a “last Adam” in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Jews give a very different interpretation to those utterances alleged to be Messianic, and the alleged types of Jesus in the Old Testament are purely fanciful, and many of them are exceedingly childish. The idea that Solomon and Moses and the scapegoat were _types_ of Jesus is simply absurd, and not creditable to the alleged antetype. There is no Jesus of Nazareth in the Hebrew oracles. The bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament were antedated by heathen nations centuries before the Jews. The sacrificing of brute beasts was heathenism pure and simple, to conciliate an imaginary anthropomorphic god. Twenty generations of innocent animals slaughtered by divine command in order to notify the world beforehand of the coming of the last Adam, yet never saying so, seem to have failed to prepare the people for the alleged spiritual sacrifice of Jesus. It was a signal failure. If these bloody offerings were types of Jesus, there must have been some resemblance. Wherein did it lie? A bullock was forced to the altar; he died like any beast at the shambles. It made the sanctuary a slaughter-house. The involuntary offering of an innocent lamb or pigeon cannot be a type of a willing offering of a human being. The whole scheme of bloody animal sacrifices is a type of nothing but the cruelty of barbarism, and meant a good dinner and fat priests! It is generally condemned by the Hebrew prophets as useless, and was entirely rejected by those who “professed and called themselves Christians.”