“In order to reclaim the vicious, to punish the incorrigible, to protect the oppressed, to destroy the oppressor, to encourage and reward the good, and to show all spirits the path to their ultimate happiness, God has been pleased to manifest Himself, say the Brahmins, in a variety of ways, from age to age, in all parts of the habitable globe. When He acts immediately, without assuming a shape, or sending forth a new emanation, when a divine sound is heard from the sky, that manifestation of Himself is called _acasavani_, or an ethereal voice: when the voice proceeds from a meteor or a flame, it is said to be _agnarupi_, or _formed of fire_; but an _avatara_ is a descent of the Deity in the shape of a mortal; and an _avantara_ is a similar incarnation of an inferior kind, intended to answer some purpose of less moment. The Supreme Being, and the celestial emanations from Him, are _niracara_, or bodiless, in which state they must be invisible to mortals; but when they are _pratya-sha_, or obvious to sight, they become _sacara_, or embodied, either in shapes different from that of any mortal, and expressive of the divine attributes, as Chrishna revealed himself to Arjun, or in a human form, _which Chrishna usually bore, and in that mode of appearing the deities are generally supposed to be born of women without any carnal intercourse_.”[321] Is this repugnant to the spirit of Christianity? No; it is its counterpart. “I know,” says Job, in the moment of inspiration, “that my Redeemer liveth.”[322] Prophetically, you reply; and you back the opinion by our Saviour’s own appeal that “Abraham saw his day, and was glad.”[323] Abraham certainly believed by anticipation, but Job by retrospection. And if you will not think my assertion decisive of the matter, I will produce an authority to which you will more readily subscribe. “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of _the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world_.”[324] It will be in vain for you to attempt to parry the evidence of this startling text. No visionary _foresight_ will accomplish its defeat: no ideal _substitutions_ will shake its validity. “How it came to pass,” says Skelton, “that the Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, before Christ came among us, and the inhabitants of the extreme northern parts of the world, ere they had so much as heard of Him, _paid a remarkable veneration to the sign of the cross_, is to me unknown, but _the fact itself_ is known. In some places this sign was given to men accused of a crime, but acquitted: and _in Egypt it stood for the signification of eternal life_.”[325] “V. W.” has asserted something similar;[326] but neither one nor the other has attempted to fathom its origin.