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" (9) We have seen how the angels sang for joy when Buddha was born, (10) and Luke tells us "that sud- denly there was with the angel, and shepherds, a multi- tude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying 'peace on earth, and good will toward men.' " And when the angels were gone away into heaven (11) the there is a lack of proof that Matthew is right as to "the slaugh- ter of the children," but if we can rely upon the Protevangelium, ch. 18 and 21 and 22, then Matthew does not stand alone. The gospel of infancy, ch. 9, says Joseph was to start for Egypt at the crowing of the cock, but it nowhere mentions the slaying of the babes. But those who hold to the three canonicals, refuse to credit the Protevangelium, or the gospel of the Infancy. (9) Luke 2:8 to 20. (10) Ch. 1, sec. 1, ante. (11) Luke 2:10 to 21. It is remarkable that neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor John have anything whatever to say about that multitude of angels which Luke mentions (Luke 2, v. 15) as going away into heaven. 66 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES shepherds went with haste, and found Mary and the babe, as the angel had told them. Section 3. Matthew, as we have seen, (12) hurries Joseph off to Eg>-pt, by night. Luke says, "When the days of her purification, according to the laws of Moses, were accomplished, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord." (13) Forty days therefore elapsed from the birth, to the time they brought him to the temple. Bethlehem being only five or six miles southeast of Jerusalem, if Jesus' life was in danger, why did they bring him to Herod's very door? If Herod was then alive, would he not know^ of this ? How easy for him, even if on his death-bed, to send a trusted messenger and learn the whereabouts of Jesus. Devout old Simeon, Ave are told, was at the temple, and took Jesus in his arms ; and Anna the prophetess was there, and a pair of turtle doves, or young pigeons, were offered as a sacrifice. "And when all these things were per- formed," Luke says, "they returned unto Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth." (14) Here, now, is a flat contradiction between two gos- pel writers. They both cannot be right. One or the (12) Ch. 2:5, 14. (13) Luke 2, v. 21 to 25; Leviticus 12:2 to 4. If a woman bore a man-child, she was unclean seven days, and on the eighth day, the child was circumcised. After that she must continu* in the blood of her purifying 33 days. (14) Luke 2:39. Matthew hurried Joseph and Mary and Jesus ofif to Egypt by night. (Matt. 2, v. 14.) Luke and Matthew eeem to have been inspired differently on this point. Does a man have to be inspired to write down sober facts? A QUESTION OF MIRACLES ^7 other is surely wrong. The ProtevangeHum, ch. 18, says : "Mary heard the children were to be killed, and she wrapped the child in swaddling clothes, and laid him in an ox-manger," but not a word is said about the flight into Egypt. The gospel of the infancy says that "when Jesus was in the temple, the angels, praising him, stood round in a circle," like life guards around a king, (15) but it makes no mention of the slaughter of the children. The flight into Eg}'pt, and a residence there of three years, is set forth in the gospel of the Infancy, together with many wild and extravagant miracles performed by Jesus as a child. It is said that a bride who had be- come dumb, on taking Jesus in her arms instantly re- covered her speech; (I will mention this more fully when I come to speak of apocryphal gospels, near the close of this book ) (16) ; that a girl whose body was white with leprosy, was cured by sprinkling upon her some water wherein Jesus was bathed; and a tree, whose bark was used for healing, bent down its branches and worshiped him, as he approached it. It may have been the same species of tree that bent down in silent adoration to Buddha, at his coming. At (15) Infancy, ch. 5. Here we eome across the first mention of the mother as "Lady Mary." (16) Eusebius, a dishonest historian, in writing of these things about A. D. 325, sets them down as sober facts. He is mislead- ing about Herod. Acts 12, v. 21 to 23. Josephus says, "Herod saw an owl sitting on a rope, which he said was an evil omen, and a severe pain arose in Herod's belly, and he fell sick, and said to those who called him a God and Immortal: 'Alas, I am soon to be hurried away by death.' " Antiq. Book 19, ch. 8, sec. 2. 68 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES Buddha's advent, we are told that even dead trees put forth leaves and flowers. There is, no doubt, just as much truth in one story as the other. Zoroaster, a great religious teacher, who preceded both Buddha and Jesus by centuries, was likewise wel- comed in a peculiar manner. We are told that for three days and nights before he was born the whole village became luminous, and a divine radiance, sur- passing the brilliancy of the sun, encircled his father's house. Moreover, we are told that Zoroaster laughed outright as he came into the world. The Herod of that day was a wicked Karap, or wizard, who sought to kill the child by placing him in front of a herd of cattle. But an old ox, it is said, stood guard over him until the herd passed by. Failing in that the wizard sought to burn the child, but the fagots would not take fire. Then Zoroaster is flung into a wolf's den, but two angels, Srosh and Vohuman, close the wolf's mouth, and he is saved. They seem to have had miracles in Persia, as well as in India and Palestine. (17) Section 4. We shall see further along how angels ministered to both Buddha, Jesus and Zoroaster. In one place it is said an angel actually held down the branches of a tree and thereby saved Buddha from be- ing drowned in the Ganges. We shall be told how Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness, and that angels came and fed him. And that an angel actually (17) See Whitney's Zoroaster, chapter 3. And Dinkard, ch. 3, sec. 16 and 46, and OinJcard, p. 146, vol. 47, Sacred Books of the East. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 69 introduced Zoroaster to the Almighty. But now, for many centuries past, this wicked and perverse world has not either seen or heard so much as the rustle of an angel's wing. The Bethlehem incarnation and birth, we must re- member, was preceded more than one thousand years by the incarnation and birth of the Hindu God, Krishna or Vishnu. Bhagavat Purana tells us of Vishnu's miraculous conception and birth ; that he was born in a dungeon, the walls of which, at his birth, were strangely illuminated; that a chorus of devas (angels) welcomed his advent, and as soon as born he had the power of speech and conversed with his mother. Buddha, as we have seen, possessed at his birth the power of speech and said to his mother, "I have been born to save the world." Krishna (Vishnu), like Jesus, was cradled among shepherds. We are told that Cansa. the ruler of the country, fearing the loss of his kingdom, sought the life of Krishna, and the child was only saved by being hurried away at night and concealed in a distant region. Cansa, the Herod of the East, finding himself "mocked" (18) slaughtered all the young children in his king- dom. (19) Krishna, even when a child, we are told, performed (18) Matt. 2, V. 16. ,, . (19) I have followed in this matter Eev. Thomas Maurice, in hie history of Hindostan, vol. 2; he insists on the vast antiquity of the Hindu scriptures. That great scholar, Sir William Jones, says the birth of Chrisna is many centuries before Jesus. Col. Wilford puts the time 1300 B. C; others, several centuries later. 70 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES many miracles. He raises the dead to life, he strangles a huge serpent, he cures lepers. While still a boy the other boys choose him King. In the gospel of the In- fancy (ch. 41) \ve are told that Jesus ranked the boys together as if he were a king and they spread gar- ments for him to sit upon and crowned him with flow- ers. Is it not very remarkable that the happenings at Jesus' birth so nearly resemble or duplicate those of Krishna, who preceded him by more than a thousand years ? Section 5. The lavish supply of angels in Persia, Judea and Palestine seems to have completely ex- hausted the entire stock. And now for nearly twenty- four hundred years in India and three thousand years in Persia and nineteen hundred years in Palestine, not a single blessed flyer has ever put in an appearance. Why have we been so slighted ?