Note 105 — LECTURE II. THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AND THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SCRIPTURES.

It is significant that in the beginning of the Bible Nature-worship seems stamped as accursed in its symbol, the serpent, and that the whole Bible from beginning to end is a Divine protest against that worship in all its forms. Mankind in all ages is tempted to become as the gods, and in a low condition he has almost everywhere succumbed to the temptation. He feasts his gods, compels them to serve him, is really higher than they, and thus he degrades himself or falls from the ideal of one made in the image and after the likeness of God.