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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 COMMON FEATURES, WHICH APPEAR 
 
 IN ALL 
 
 FORMS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
 
 PUBLICATIONS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 ETON ADDRESSES TO KING WILLIAM IV. 1840. 
 
 HAILEYBURY-OBSERVER CONTRIBUTIONS. 1840-1842. 
 
 CALCUTTA- REVIEW CONTRIBUTIONS. 1845-1893. 
 
 HISTORY OF COCKAYNE- HATLEY CHURCH. 1851. 
 
 MANUALS FOR GUIDANCE OF NATIVE OFFICIALS IN THE 
 
 URDU -LANGUAGE. 1855 to 1859. 
 PANJAB REVENUE- MANUAL. 1865. 
 
 REVENUE-LAW OF NORTH-WEST PROVINCES OF INDIA. 1867. 
 LAND-REVENUE- PROCEDURE FOR NORTHERN INDIA. 1870. 
 MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE EAST INDIES. 1878. 
 LES RELIGIONS ET LES LANGUES DE L'INDE (French). 1880. 
 LA RELIGIONE ET LE LINGUE DELL INDIA (Italian). 1882. 
 LAS RELIGIONES Y LOS IDIOMAS DE LA INDIA (Spanish). 1884. 
 ©prjffKttai Kal YXwacrcu ttj.v 'IvSias (Greek). 1884. 
 MODERN LANGUAGES OF AFRICA. 2 Vols. 1883. 
 LES LANGUES DE LAFRIQUE (French). 1885. (German. 1881.) 
 LE LINGUE DELL' AFRICA (Italian). 1885. 
 MODERN LANGUAGES OF OCEANIA. 1887. (German. 1887.) 
 LES RACES ET LES LANGUES DE L'OCEANIE (French). 1888. 
 MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE CAUCASIAN-GROUP. 1887. 
 LANGUAGES OF THE TURKI BRANCH OF THE URAL-ALTAIC 
 
 FAMILY. 1889. (German and English.) 
 LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL ESSAYS. Series I. 1880. 
 LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL ESSAYS. Series II. 1887. 
 LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL ESSAYS. Series III. 1891. 
 PICTURES OF INDIAN LIFE. 1881. 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SHRINES OF LOURDES, ZARAGOSSA, 
 
 LORETTO, Etc. 1885 and 1892. 
 POEMS OF MANY YEARS AND PLACES. 1887. 
 SUMMER- HOLIDAYS OF AN ETON BOY. 1887. 
 THE SORROWS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE. 1889. 
 NOTES ON MISSIONARY SUBJECTS. 1889. 
 BIBLE- LANGUAGES. 1890. 
 CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON, OR THE VARIOUS FORMS OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS ERROR. 1890. 
 BIBLE-TRANSLATIONS. 1890. 
 AFRICA REDIVIVA, OR MISSIONARY OCCUPATION OF AFRICA. 
 
 1891. (French and English.) 
 ADDRESSES ON BIBLE-DIFFUSION. 1892. 
 ESSAY ON THE METHODS OF EVANGELIZATION OF THE 
 
 WORLD. 1894. 
 COMMON FEATURES, WHICH APPEAR IN ALL THE RELIGIONS 
 
 OF THE WORLD BEFORE ANNO DOMINI. 1895. 
 THE GOSPEL-MESSAGE. (In the Press.)
 
 ESSAY 
 
 ox THE 
 
 COMMON FEATURES, WHICH APPEAR IN 
 ALE FORMS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT NEEDHAM CUST, LL.D., 
 
 BARRISTER-AT-LAW, 
 
 HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL ASTATIC SOCIETY, 
 
 LATE MEMBER OF HER MAJESTY'S INDIAN CIYIL SERVICE. 
 
 I. Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. 
 Acts, xiv, 16. 
 IT. Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. John, x, 16. 
 
 III. They are less to be blamed, for they peradventure seek God and desire to 
 
 find Him. Wisdom of 'Solomon , xiii, 6. 
 
 IV. He hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 
 
 of the earth . . . that they should seek the Lord, and find Him, though 
 He be not far from every one of us. Acts, xvii, 26, 27. 
 V. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all 
 
 men everywhere to repent. Acts, xvii, 30. 
 VI. One God and Father of all. Ephesians, iv, 6. 
 VII. The world by wisdom knew not God. 1 Cor. i, 21. 
 VIII. God, who at sundry times. Hebrews, i, 1. 
 IX. No respecter of persons. Acts, x, 34. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LUZAC & CO., 46, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, 
 
 1895. 
 
 .-/// rights reserved.}
 
 HERTFORD: 
 
 PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS
 
 c*7 
 
 Eo mo tin a Daugljterg, 
 MARIA ELEANOR VERE, 
 
 AND 
 
 ANNA MARIA ELIZABETH, 
 
 THIS FEELING FOR THE TRUTH 
 is 
 
 Deoicatco. 
 
 2070410
 
 ( ix ) 
 
 And now my Summer-task is ended. Roll 
 
 Up all my papers, and my volumes close : 
 From parts divergent I have sought a whole, 
 Complete and perfect, as before me rose 
 
 The variant Message, which from Heaven's abode 
 Came down to earth to lead poor man to God. 
 
 Each Message but reveals th' unchanging plan 
 
 Of Love and Kindness to poor Humankind, 
 And, like a sunflower, turns the heart of man 
 Groping through darkness his soul's sun to find : 
 No cavern is so dark, but through the night 
 One ray streams in of God's eternal light. 
 
 As his forefathers did in Abraham's time, 
 
 Still by the stream the Brahmin chaunts his prayers ; 
 The Buddhist asks for nothing, but sublime 
 Emancipation from Life's dreary cares. 
 
 Oh ! could no Angel earth's hard path have trod 
 To whisper in his ear : " There is a God !" 
 
 Can we believe, that all-embracing Grace, 
 
 Which o'er Creation's waters used to glide, 
 Chose out one puny, graceless, Jewish Race, 
 And shut the gates of Hope on all beside : 
 
 Let them indulge their passions and their crimes 
 And raise up trophies to outlive all times ? 
 
 Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, 
 
 Left words of gold, which no age can destroy ; 
 They please, when all things else have ceased to please : 
 But of those holy men how great the joy, 
 
 Had God's own Message by their soul been heard ; 
 If one still voice their inward heart had stirred ! 
 
 b
 
 ( * ) 
 
 " Call nothing common and unclean " applies 
 
 Not to the Future only, but the Past : 
 To one He gives, to others He denies ; 
 According to His will man's lot is cast : 
 
 He will not reap, where He has never sown, 
 Or claim obedience, where He is not known. 
 
 Full many a heathen lived out holy days, 
 
 Died for his altar, for his country strove ; 
 Spake hymns Heaven-prompted, full of prayer and praise, 
 And words of Wisdom, Piety, and Love. 
 
 Fell not Thy shadow, Lord ! on those behind, 
 When on the Cross Thou suffered for mankind ? 
 
 Poor little children die, who knew no spot, 
 Unconscious of their life, and undefiled : 
 Can we suppose, that torture is their lot ? 
 Were not the heathen Races like a child ? 
 
 Salvation is the goal of Heaven's great plan, 
 And justifies the ways of God to man. 
 
 I hope through Him, who has the power to save, 
 
 To be with Christ, which is far better — far. 
 To those, to whom the Holy Spirit gave 
 
 To speak like Christ, oh ! can there be a bar ? 
 For Socrates and Buddha if there be 
 No place in Heaven, what place, alas ! for me ? 
 
 Let us adore Thee in Thy fulness, Lord, 
 
 With the Creator on Creation's day, 
 When Thou rejoiced with Him in full accord, 
 
 And Morning-stars commenced their joyous way : 
 
 And when on Calvary's mount the palm was won 
 All was completed, and God's purpose done. 
 
 Eastbourne, Sept. 26, 1893.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. Title-page 
 
 2. Dedication 
 
 3. Poem . . . 
 
 4. Contents 
 
 5. Exordium 
 
 6. Classification of Subject 
 
 7. Motive and Plan 
 
 Cap. I. A Supernatural Power 
 
 Cap. II. 'Worship of such a Power ... 
 
 Cap. III. Manifestation of such a Power 
 
 Cap. IV. Early Human Practices and Notions 
 
 Cap. V. Records of Past Generations 
 
 Cap. VI. Religiosity and Morals 
 
 Cap. VII. Progress of the Human Race 
 
 8. Concluding Remarks ... 
 
 9. Poem ... 
 
 10. Bibliography ... 
 
 11. Index of Subjects, Phrases, Quotations, Illustrations 
 
 12. Errata ... ... ... 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 vii 
 ix 
 xi 
 
 xiii 
 xxiii 
 I 
 15 
 35 
 74 
 92 
 
 112 
 
 141 
 156 
 
 163 
 1S1 
 
 1S3 
 187 
 
 195
 
 EXORDIUM. 
 
 He was sitting in his Library, in the decline of life : inde- 
 pendent in fortune, free from vulgar cares, he had throughout 
 his life made Science, Absolute Science, his object. No 
 coarse vice, no moral weakness, had troubled him : he had 
 been spared that temptation : a sound constitution, and regular 
 habits, had brought him through seventy years, unbroken in 
 body or mind. 
 
 With the help of Astronomy, he had pierced the vault of 
 Heaven, had numbered and weighed the stars, and called 
 them all by their names. By the thread of Geology, he had 
 forced his way into the hidden recesses of Mother-Earth, and 
 had groped his way back to Chaos and beyond. He had drank 
 deep of the sweet stores of Botany and Zoology, and had been 
 foremost in the Study of Anthropology, and had recognised 
 to the full the principle of Evolution, and Natural Selection. 
 He had classified the Languages spoken in every part of the 
 world, and traced their affiliation back to their different seed- 
 plots. With Electricity he had spanned the round world, and 
 dissatisfied with the revealed secrets of Nature, he was always 
 peering through half-opened doors to catch some new Fact, or 
 Idea. He had tried to calculate, how long this world had 
 existed, and how much longer, in spite of the continual 
 expenditure of heat, it would continue to exist. He had 
 dropped his plummet into the deepest well, and had found no 
 bottom. 
 
 There he sat, like a statue of Armed Science, waiting for More 
 Light : no scoffing, no blasphemous word, had ever passed his 
 lips : he had thought kindly, even pityingly, of all, deeming,
 
 ( xiv ) 
 
 them to be blind, or to be walking with intentionally closed 
 eyes. He knew from experience what an exacting mistress 
 Science was, and how easy it was to be deceived, and he 
 extended to the vagaries of others the same large-hearted 
 charity, which he gently, but unobtrusively, claimed for his 
 own. No Philosopher was ever so free from dogmatism, so 
 alien from the bitterness of controversy, so devoid of Egotism, 
 as he was ; so modest in his assertions, so ready to anticipate 
 the objections of others, or himself to suggest objections for 
 the purpose of exhausting the subject. Like the late Ernest 
 Renan, he would listen to the speculations of others with 
 attention, make a polite bow, and, commencing with, " Je suis 
 tout avec vous, Monsieur," proceed politely in measured tones 
 to tear the theory propounded to atoms. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose, that men of Science attack Religion 
 from pure malice, for it is to be feared, that they do not think 
 of Religion at all : they are led on in spite of themselves in 
 search of absolute tested Truth. The real contest is betwixt 
 one phase of Science and another, betwixt the crude knowledge 
 of yesterday and the less crude knowledge of to-day. The 
 contest is merely the measure of the difficulty of exchanging 
 obsolete notions for new and accurate ones. Our ancestors 
 transmitted to us certain notions, which they honestly and 
 piously entertained, but to which we cannot assent without 
 considerable revision. The discovery by Copernicus of the 
 rotation of the globe is an instance. It had nothing to do with 
 man's belief in God, and yet at the time of the discovery it was 
 deemed atheistic, and contrary to the Scriptures. 
 
 As in the newly-discovered ruins of an ancient city, students 
 occupy themselves in digging, and sorting, everything, that the 
 spade turned up, and speculating on its origin and object : so in 
 the pages of ancient Manuscripts, he tried to look below the 
 actual written words, and with the lens of Higher Criticism 
 try to find out the motive, the environment, the materials 
 available, and the antecedents, of the writer. 
 
 Among his large acquaintance he had never taken intimate 
 counsel with any : he was not a thoughtless observer : he had 
 known many, who all their life had been worldly, immoral, 
 with no thought of ever turning to their Creator, careless of 
 the future, unrepentant of the past, and yet Prosperity of every 
 kind had accompanied them from the cradle to the grave. 
 On the other hand, he knew of good men and women, whose 
 life had been embittered by sorrow, suffering, want, and bereave- 
 ment, the result of the errors of others. He read in the papers 
 of hundreds being suffocated in a mine, drowned in a shipwreck, 
 or crushed to death in a railway accident, of some bright 
 angel of purity and goodness being drowned in a boat-accident.
 
 ( xv ) 
 
 He thought of the lines of the Poet Claudian, written 1400 
 years before, which were as true now as they were then : 
 
 Saspe mihi dubiam tenuit sententia mentem, 
 Curarent Superi terras, an nullus inesset 
 Rector, et incerto fluerent mortalia casu : 
 Nam, cum dispositi quaesissem fcedera mundi, 
 Praascriptosque maris fines, amnisque meatus, 
 Et lucis, noctisque, vices : tunc omnia rebar 
 Concilio firmata Dei : 
 Sed cum res hominum tanta. caligine volvi 
 Aspiciam, laatosque diu florere nocentes, 
 Vexarique pios, rursus labefacta cadebat 
 Reli^io. 
 
 (Claudian, a.d. 400.) 
 
 1 & ' 
 
 The secret, which Claudian could not find out, is still unsolved. 
 We, indeed, ex animo believe, that there is a God, who rules 
 the affairs of men in the best, and wisest, and kindest way; but 
 to the last three lines there is no reply. The old clergyman's 
 saw, repeated in the ears of widows, and orphans, and bereaved 
 ones, by the side of the death-bed of the loved one, does not 
 help us. 
 
 Nothing remained on his memory, which was not positive 
 Fact, or logical deductions from those Facts. As to the past, 
 he admitted the existence of a great Building, or Institution, 
 and allowed by a safe induction a period for its erection and 
 development. As to History, he believed nothing, except so far 
 as the statements made stood the test of his scientific evidential 
 requirements. He had never cared to think of the future : with 
 his favourite Poet Horace, he was content to say each day 
 "Vixi": the future may be what it likes, but the Deity Him- 
 self cannot change the past. He knew, that by a physical law 
 all must die, and that by the books of the Actuaries seventy 
 was above the average of lives ; but it was nothing to him. 
 
 To him it seemed quite reasonable, that in the course of 
 centuries old things should pass away in the Education of the 
 world in things spiritual, as well as in things material. Morality, 
 and a rule of things absolutely right and absolutely wrong, can 
 never change, but he thought, that the aspect of the relation 
 of Man to God could change, and did change in proportion, as 
 More Light was vouchsafed by the Creator to His poor creatures. 
 This made him wonder, why such inapposite selections from 
 the Hebrew Scriptures were read in Churches, such as the 
 Priestly code, which had passed away, the immoralities of David 
 and Solomon, the cruel massacres of defeated enemies, and of 
 Gentile Priests, the conduct of Lot, and Jael, the slaughter
 
 ( xvi ) 
 
 of women and children ; for what lessons of Faith, or Morals, or 
 Charity, could be learnt from the reading of such fearful stories, 
 the absolute truth of which it is a labour of Charity and Pity 
 to doubt, to the uneducated or imperfectly experienced people 
 of Great Britain, who are on such an entirely different platform 
 of Ideas, Human and Divine. 
 
 He was one morning thinking of Wisdom, and he read the 
 famous passage in the Proverbs descriptive of 'H d^u/ 2o0/«, 
 for he was acquainted with all the Sacred Books of the 
 Human Race, and was up to the level of the latest Exploration : 
 there seemed to be a common resting-place in the conception 
 of the Ao'705 as expounded by Plato, Philo, and the Apostle 
 John, for the Christian, the neo-Jewish, and neo-Platonic, 
 Philosophy. He thought it out in his usual calm, earnest, 
 thorough way, as he would have thought out the description 
 of a new development of Electricity, or a new Region dis- 
 covered in Geography, or a new Palaeolithic specimen. There 
 were no idols of the Den, of the Market-place, of the Theatre, 
 or of the Temple, to obscure his vision : he was not afraid 
 of logical consequences, or reasonable inductions from well- 
 ascertained Facts : he was not afraid of finding, that he had 
 been mistaken. 
 
 This threw him back on the fundamental conception that not 
 to be born, or to die as soon as possible after birth, was the 
 kindest lot. The lines of Theognis came to his mind : 
 
 Apxyv /tiev fin (jiuvai eiriyOovioiaiv upiatov, 
 
 M;yo loitelv av*/a,9 o£eo9 ijeXtou' 
 (pvi'Tcto ottw} ivkiotci 7TjAa? Aioao ireptjirat, 
 
 kuI KeiaOai 7ro\\i]u <^/T]v iirafinaafievov. 
 
 His thoughts then lifted him up to a high eminence, whence 
 he could survey the cities of men, and their inhabitants : they 
 looked like ants and ant-hills. Bodies Politic called States, and 
 Bodies Ecclesiastic called Churches, assumed their relative 
 importance, or rather want of importance, in the great pro- 
 gression of Man's destiny : History and the cause of things, 
 Geography and the position of things, Logic and the reason 
 of things, Wisdom and the object of things, appeared stretched 
 before him. Rising to a still higher eminence, he stood on 
 the lowest steps of the throne of Divine Knowledge, 'H a<yi'n 
 2o0/«, and saw below him Creeds, Dogmas, Rituals, things 
 which blind the wise, and hoodwink the unlearned : he saw 
 through the tricks of a long succession of Priesthoods ; 
 through the hypocrisy of the respectable, and those, who sail 
 easily with every wind ; through the gross falsehood of the 
 Dogmatist : all these appeared thick and murky, like the banks
 
 ( xvii ) 
 
 of clouds, which envelop the Lower Alps, but Truth shone 
 out like the Sun above all. What is Truth ? Pilate asked the 
 question, but received no reply : the Latin anagram tells it : 
 
 " Quid est Veritas ?" " Vir est qui adest." 
 
 He was fond of dwelling upon the extreme opportuneness, 
 both in time and place, of the appearance of Christ in the form 
 of man : looking backwards or forwards in History to Abraham, 
 1900 B.C., and to the present Epoch, 1900 a.d., no Epoch, and 
 no Locality, was so suitable per se for the enunciation of a 
 worldwide dispensation as Palestine in Anno Domini. 
 
 Not only was the Hellenic genius at its zenith, and the Latin 
 genius developing itself as a worthy rival of its elder sister, but 
 beyond, in an unknown region beyond the Alps, was the great 
 Teutonic Race, which had just found its way into Europe, 
 and was standing ready to accept the new Religious conception, 
 clothed in the bright languages of Greece and Rome, as the 
 foundation of their spiritual and material existences. He laid 
 stress on the mighty change in the whole frame and attitude 
 of the Human mind in respect of Divine Things, which com- 
 menced from that date its march literally and actually over the 
 whole world ; the conception of a Kingdom of Heaven, a divine 
 Society, the individuality of belief, and yet the universality, the 
 extreme necessity to all, the exclusion of none, the reasonable- 
 ness, the simplicity, and the impossibility of suggesting any 
 other scheme of Salvation. 
 
 In the last few years many things had occupied his 
 thoughts. A transition-period had arrived in Religious affairs: 
 old bulwarks had been swept away. The inhabitants of the 
 most distant regions of the world had begun to know each 
 other. The spade of the excavator was exposing to view 
 treasures never dreamt of in the shape of the documents of 
 the past. New worlds of Science were opening round young 
 intellects, to which Science was the necessity of life. He 
 passed then under review : 
 
 I. The Geographical, Ethnical, and Linguistic, revelations. 
 II. The larger view of Historical Research. 
 
 III. The Comparative Study of the Religions of the world. 
 
 IV. The excavations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, and India. 
 V. The Higher Criticism of the Old Testament. 
 
 VI. The fearless, methodical, scientific, Spirit of Inquiry in 
 every portion of the great Kosmos. 
 VII. A deeper moral consciousness of the relation of the 
 Creator to all His poor creatures from the beginning 
 of the ages until the present Epoch.
 
 ( xviii ) 
 
 When he read the History of the ancient nations, and 
 heard the bold assertions of his own countrymen as to 
 the- spiritual position of the great mass of mankind, who did 
 not agree with them as to matters not of Science, but of 
 belief, he wondered, and this day that he was meditating on 
 the Wisdom, 'H a^trj 2o0/a, which had helped the Creator to 
 create the world (Proverbs, viii, 22), he fell into a new train of 
 thought, carefully keeping to Facts, and legitimate deductions, 
 that it seemed a disparagement to the Wisdom of the Creator to 
 imagine, 
 
 I. That the vast mass of His creatures, in countless 
 generations and untold Millions, were born, lived, 
 and died, without the opportunity of finding the 
 Truth in a matter deemed by themselves to be most 
 essential to their welfare. 
 
 II. That to one portion of the great world alone, and for 
 a few centuries out of the great succession of years, 
 the Truth was believed to have been revealed. 
 
 III. That although for many centuries great Nations in Asia 
 had labouredhard in the search for Divine Truth, 
 all their stored-up wealth of knowledge was nothing 
 worth, and in the eyes of the few, who asserted 
 a monopoly of Divine things, they themselves and 
 their ancestors were deemed to be as the beasts 
 that perish. This seemed to him very strange, and 
 in strong contrast with the words of Cicero, "De 
 Natura Deorum," II, 66 : 
 
 " Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit." 
 
 Such were his reflections, and looking forward into the vista 
 of years, and backward to the fountains of Historic, and 
 Religious, Knowledge, he from his own point of view wondered, 
 whether future ages might not bring further development : the 
 Jew thought his conception final ; the Zoroastrian thought 
 the same of his : only a few fragments remain of either : the 
 Brahmanist, the Buddhist, and the Confucianist, still count 
 their hundreds of Millions, and show no signs of moral, 
 material, or intellectual, decay. From the Jew had sprung the 
 Christian in his Millions; from the Christian and Jew united 
 had sprung the followers of Islam ; from Islam, new develop- 
 ments (notably the Babi) were coming into existence, and the 
 air was full of the rustling of leaves, and the rumbling of 
 earthquakes : there was a sound of advancing conceptions,
 
 ( xix ) 
 
 and new Faiths in germ, springing up from old roots ; and the 
 hand of the Intolerant Persecutor, which made such havoc of 
 so-called Heresies in early centuries, was shortened for ever. 
 So far the world had made a solid advance, and was ready for 
 further advances. 
 
 He adopted the sentiments of the great and tolerant author 
 of " Ecce Homo," p. 74, "that the path of Christian Truth is 
 " overgrown with prejudices, and strewn with fallen theories and 
 " rotten systems, which hide it from our view. It is quite as 
 " hard to think rightly as to act rightly, or even feel rightly. 
 " Men do not understand, or appreciate, the difficulty of 
 " finding Truth." In fact some men do not think at all, and 
 raise an inane cry against the thinker. He used to quote with 
 approbation a sentence from the Review of " Ecce Homo " by 
 Mr. Gladstone, on which all should humbly reflect : " The 
 " astounding fact of the manifestation of the Lord of Glory 
 " in the veil of Human flesh may, and does, stagger in some 
 " minds the whole faculty of belief. Happy are those, who 
 " do examine, and after full consideration believe, but we cannot 
 " condemn those, who do not'. 'Lord, help their unbelief.'' How 
 different is the practice ! " Receive it as a little child," shouts 
 the Protestant. " Believe it because the Pope says so," cries 
 the Jesuit. " Swallow it because it is in the Veda," cries the 
 Brahmin. " Have ' Imam,' and read the Koran," says the 
 Mahometan. "Believe nothing, if incapable of physical proof," 
 suggests the Agnostic. "There is no God," says the fool. "If 
 there is one, he cares not for man," says the modern Epicurean. 
 " Prove all things by the help of the Holy Spirit, which is 
 within you," murmurs the humble believer. 
 
 He used sometimes to say, that he had more in his intellectual 
 structure of Erasmus than of Luther : his desire was to cut 
 away abuses, and reform errors, rather than pull a fabric 
 down, or destroy the strength of a great organization, which 
 had come into existence for purposes of Religion, Morality, 
 and Benevolence, by breaking it up into fragments, each 
 fragment bitterly hostile to the others. The Encomium Moriae, 
 or " Praise of Folly," was ever his delight, and some of the 
 sentiments of the great mediaeval Prophet were adopted by 
 him, such as, " the party, which has the fools at its back, has 
 usually the majority of numbers " ; " the best of mankind have 
 been called heretics"; and "men, who have been themselves 
 reformers, are the least tolerant, when a movement takes 
 a form, which they dislike." 
 
 Strong in his convictions, that the present generation was 
 heir of all the ages, that throughout all the ages one increasing 
 purpose ran, and that the thoughts of men grew wider with 
 the progress of the Sun ; that Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato,
 
 ( xx ) 
 
 Zoroaster, the Hindu Sages, Buddha, and Kong-Fu-Tsee, would 
 have done larger and better things, had they had deeper and 
 wider experience ; that man ought to profit by History, and not 
 be a slave to it ; that a so-called Church, appealing to ignorant 
 people in dark ages, was the greatest enemy to the Manifestation 
 of the Divinity, which is ever fresh and new in the person of 
 Christ, he determined to collect, in a cold, unimpassioned, way, 
 the Common Features of Religious Belief: certain things he 
 seemed instinctively to loathe, such as Dogmatism, Priestcraft, 
 Ritual, Liturgical recitations, and certain things to love (for 
 Love must be the motive power), such as the humble prayer 
 of the Publican, the cry of the penitent thief on the Cross, 
 the words of Christ on the Cross, and the prayer for his 
 murderers by Stephen. 
 
 He regarded an Establishment, supported by the favour of the 
 State, and endowed with ancestral Revenues, for the benefit of 
 all the population of a country, but in the lapse of years appro- 
 priated by a portion only of that population, as a great scandal, 
 an evil inheritance from bad old times, when the lust of a 
 monarch, or the caprice of a ruling faction, tried, as in the days 
 of the Kings of Israel and Judah, to modify, restrict, or even 
 forbid, the free worship of an ignorant people. The Hindu 
 and Mahometan in British India are in a better plight than the 
 Hebrews were in the times of the Kings, or the English in the 
 time of Henry VIII and his two daughters : a hierarchy appointed 
 by the caprice of those in power, the sale by public advertise- 
 ment, or private contract, of the right to give Spiritual teaching, 
 the retention in office of grossly immoral servants, the elevation 
 of the Ecclesiastic from the humble position occupied by 
 Christ (Mark, x, 43) of minister or "famulus" (Castellio's 
 Latin version) to that of Rector, or Dominus, or Sacerdos, 
 claiming the burial-ground as his freehold, in which he can 
 feed his sheep, and the place of worship as a spot, in which 
 he can indulge himself in any new Ecclesiastical vagaries of 
 ornament, or practice, without any respect to the feelings of the 
 congregation/who were sold into his hands for the term of his 
 life by an alien impropriator, a capitular body, or a solicitor 
 acting for a bankrupt, without giving the poor sheep an oppor- 
 tunity of objecting to his appointment, or getting rid of him 
 as a bad shepherd. 
 
 From the wealth of his note-books, from the pigeon-holes 
 of his well-stored memory, from the shelves of his classified 
 book-case, from the pages of his beloved and well-marked 
 books, from the carton-boxes, containing the accumulated 
 cuttings from periodical literature, and extracts from favourite 
 volumes, from letters full of sympathy and suggestions received 
 from some few chosen ones, to whose judgment he had
 
 ( xxi ) 
 
 submitted portions, according to their experiences, of his rough 
 drafts, he had completed these pages, and had paused to take 
 breath, but before they had passed to the Press, he himself 
 passed away. 
 
 After completing the last chapter, he fell asleep there : 
 
 Sull' eterne pagine 
 Cadde la stanca man. 
 
 He knows the Truth, and the whole Truth, now. 
 Socrates had two thousand three hundred years before uttered 
 among his dying words : 
 
 " K.a\ov 70 u6\ov, icai 7/ 'eX^i? /ue^/aXy. 
 
 So by God's blessing may it prove to us all ! 
 
 To another hand it has fallen to carry out his intentions. 
 His Essay is, no doubt, not didactic, as the outcome of a master 
 of a great subject, but tentative for the satisfaction of his own 
 mind. The great teacher has made up his mind, and in the 
 strength of those convictions makes an utterance ex cathedra : 
 perhaps after the lapse of twenty years his edifice will fall to 
 the ground : the humble inquirer feels his way as he goes 
 along: as he advances in his task, his tone matures, or his 
 opinions recede ; they grow with the growth of his knowledge, 
 or dwindle under the sudden manifestation of new facts : his 
 work is one of self-instruction : he is slow to enunciate an 
 opinion; but when he utters the words, "I am not sure," his 
 venturing to doubt, and not to condemn at once, carries more 
 conviction to his fellow-labourers than the offhand assertions 
 of others, for he would not have doubted, if he had been sure 
 one way or the other. 
 
 He had adopted to the letter the remarks of his deceased 
 friend, Robertson Smith (Expositor, June, 1894, p. 472), that 
 " all History was the expression of a living will : it was the 
 " student's business to go fearlessly ahead in honest inquiry, 
 " because every addition to our knowledge of Human History 
 " is a further step towards understanding the purposes of God." 
 
 Comparisons are constantly made, and by very imperfectly 
 informed writers, between the Christian and non-Christian 
 Religions, the Romish and Protestant Churches, and always in 
 favour of the particular Religion, Church, or denomination, to 
 which the writer belongs : 
 
 " Solos credit habendos 
 Esse Deos, quos ipse colit." 
 
 (Juvenal, Sat. xv.)
 
 ( xxii ) 
 
 But few care, or dare to ask themselves the question : how far 
 does it in its present manifestation answer the Great Master's 
 Ideal ? what are the causes of its early success, sudden 
 arrestation, and the decay of its powerful influence for good 
 on any who profess to be Christians ? Humanum est errare : 
 all Human institutions are liable to decay: an honest man 
 is not content with spying out the shortcomings of other 
 Religious systems, but he inquires how far his own conception 
 falls short of the great Ideal.
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Motives and Plan 
 
 Cap. I. 
 
 Cap. II. 
 
 (< 
 
 A Supernatural Power 
 
 Existence of such a Power 
 
 A. Anthropomorphism 
 
 B. Monolatry . 
 
 C. Monotheism 
 
 D. Polytheism 
 
 (2) Place of Residence of such a Power 
 
 (3) Theophanies, Visions, Dreams, Good and 
 
 Evil Spirits ..... 
 
 (4) Primeval Revelation : was there any ? 
 
 (5) Substitution of Idols made by Men's Hand 
 
 for an Impersonal Divinity 
 
 (6) Fatherhood of God .... 
 
 (7) Threats of Worshippers uttered against thei 
 
 gods ...... 
 
 Worship of such a Power 
 
 What is it ? 
 
 Primeval 
 
 Ancestral 
 
 Sacrifice 
 
 Prayer 
 
 Ritual . 
 
 Priestcraft, Witchcraft, Exorcism 
 
 Ceremonial Cleanness, or Uncleanness 
 
 Fasting, Celibacy, Asceticism, Eremitism 
 
 Feasting;, Day of Rest .... 
 
 (0 
 
 (2) 
 
 (3) 
 (4) 
 (5) 
 (6) 
 (7) 
 (8) 
 
 (9) 
 (10) 
 (11) Esoteric, or Exoteric 
 
 Cap. III. Manifestation of such a Power 
 
 (1) Miracles ..... 
 
 (2) Prophecies, Auguries, Ordeals 
 
 (3) National Sins and Punishments, 
 
 and Hostility of the Deity . 
 
 (4) Signs from Heaven 
 
 (5) Conception of Fate, Nemesis, 'Epiwvs 
 
 Ange 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 '5 
 
 19 
 20 
 2 1 
 
 24 
 24 
 
 25 
 30 
 
 3' 
 
 33 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 35 
 40 
 
 43 
 
 47 
 
 53 
 62 
 
 66 
 
 68 
 
 69 
 
 7 1 
 7 1 
 
 74 
 
 74 
 79 
 
 85 
 88 
 
 90
 
 Cap. IV. 
 
 ( xxiv ) 
 
 (i) Disposal of Dead 
 
 (2) Eschatology 
 
 (3) Mutilation or Disfigurement of 
 
 (4) 
 
 Strange and Abominable Customs 
 
 Body 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Human Practices and Notions 92 
 
 92 
 
 94 
 109 
 
 1 10 
 
 Cap. V. 
 
 Language 
 
 Records of Past Generations 
 
 (1) Written ..... 
 
 A. Necessity for Higher Criticism 
 
 B. Connection between 
 
 Religion 
 
 C. Advantages derived from perusal 
 
 Sacred Books 
 
 D. Description of Sacred Books . 
 
 E. Was there a Divine Afflatus ? . 
 
 F. Blemishes in literary style of th 
 
 Books .... 
 
 (2) Oral: Tradition .... 
 
 and 
 
 of 
 
 1 12 
 
 1 12 
 116 
 
 121 
 
 122 
 
 126 
 
 135 
 139 
 
 Cap. VI. Religiosity and Morals 
 
 (1) Morality . 
 
 (2) Arm of the Flesh 
 
 (3) Fanaticism 
 
 (4) Superstition 
 
 (5) Change of Belief 
 
 144 
 
 144 
 x 47 
 
 •52 
 153 
 
 Cap. VII. 
 
 Progress of Human Race 
 
 156 
 
 (1) Multiplication and Improved Culture under 
 
 all forms of Religious Belief . -156 
 
 (2) Arts, Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, 
 
 Drama . . . . . . .160
 
 MOTIVES AND PLAN. 
 
 The object was to note the common features of that attitude 
 of the Human Reason, which is called Religion, comprising 
 (i) Customs, (2) Conceptions, (3) Dogma. 
 
 The elder world was separated into all but unapproachable 
 sections : the same remark may be made with regard to 
 barbarous tribes at this present Epoch : they borrowed from 
 their neighbours little or nothing, and lent little. 
 
 During the lapse of ages no Nation, or tribe, has gone back 
 in its Religious conceptions : there are signs of development 
 everywhere, in ancient times from their own fountain of 
 knowledge, in modern times from contact with other Nations. 
 During the last century there has been a marked process of 
 inter- comparison, amalgamation, the result of contact with 
 Races in a higher state of civilization, and endowed with superior 
 physical force : the dead silence of past centuries has been 
 broken ; the Intellect of the whole Human Race is waking up 
 from torpor : it does not follow, that it will be to the advantage 
 of the Human Race intellectually, or morally: no opinions 
 are given : facts are recorded : Galileo's utterance applies, 
 " E pur si muove." 
 
 The conduct of the Christian Missionary, Theologian, and 
 Historian, as regards forms of Religious belief other than their 
 own, has been shameful in the extreme : 
 
 " Damnant, quod non intelligunt " : 
 
 they have not taken time to study the subject, they give no 
 quarter to the worshipper, and cover the Worship with ridicule; 
 and yet the homage rendered by the Soul to the Unseen, and 
 Unknown, Power, that governs the world, is always worthy of 
 respect ; at least Paul thought so, when he addressed the 
 Athenians on Mars' Hill, and Plato and Cicero were of the same 
 opinion. The non-Christian educated classes return the abuse 
 of their Christian assailants : the account of the Christian 
 Religion by a Japanese, or Chinese, scholar after a visit to 
 England would be a fair reply to a young Missionary's 
 description of Mahometans published, I am ashamed to say, 
 in the periodical of a Missionary Society.
 
 ( 2 ) 
 
 Let that pass : but such people have failed to fathom the 
 depths of the Religious element : they are unacquainted with 
 Homer, and the Greek Tragedians ; with Virgil, Horace, Seneca, 
 and Juvenal : they knew nothing first-hand of the History, and 
 existing practice, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Mahometan, 
 their forms of Worship, their national legends, and the Religious 
 conception, which underlies them. A study of the non-Christian 
 Religion is not without use in the study of the Christian Religion. 
 
 Before we judge the non-Christian world, whom we do not 
 know, let us analyse the Christian world, whom we do know. 
 They may be divided into the following classes : 
 
 I. Extremist : ritualist, if High ; sensationalist, if Low. 
 II. Real and undemonstrative. 
 
 III. Nominal : (A) for form's sake, i.e. Baptism, Marriage, 
 
 and Funeral ; (B) those who have cast off all belief, 
 yet still cling to Worship for fashion's sake, and to 
 Morality for the sake of their social position. 
 
 IV. Theists, Agnostics, Theosophists. 
 
 V. Census-Christians, utterly without any Religious feelings. 
 
 Owing to very strict, and strictly enforced, laws in civilized 
 countries, crime against person and property is kept in check. 
 Before we condemn others, let them be weighed in the same 
 scales, and subjected to the same civil and criminal laws : in 
 India, for instance, all atrocious crime is stamped out, under the 
 stern principle, that nothing can be theologically right, which 
 is morally wrong. Had Abraham attempted to kill Isaac in an 
 Indian District, the police would have interfered. Had 
 Ananias and Sapphira been disposed of in an Indian District, 
 the local Magistrate would have arrested all concerned. Had 
 Stephen been stoned in the streets of Banaras, the young 
 man, who held his clothes, and any of the other murderers, 
 would have expiated their crime on the gallows. 
 
 A comparative study of the Religions of Antiquity, a thing 
 impossible until this century, has widened the horizon of our 
 Ideas, and has so thoroughly established the Universality of 
 a certain amount of Central Religious Truth, that, if we found 
 the Decalogue set out in an Assyrian Tablet, or a newly- 
 translated Book of the Buddhists, we should not think of 
 literary larceny, but of a common inheritance. 
 
 Let me be bold : I believe in the innate goodness of man 
 to a certain extent : he is the chef d'ceuvre of the works of the 
 great Creator : I pass my eyes down the great scroll of 
 the Vegetable, and Animal, World, and find nothing after all 
 so excellent as man, in spite of all his failings, weaknesses, and 
 errors : of all the animals he is the only one, to whom the Grace
 
 ( 3 ) ^ 
 
 of repentance for an evil act is given : his heart turns like 
 a sunflower to the great Creator: when the Holy Spirit does 
 penetrate its darkness, it becomes full of light. There is in the 
 Genus Homo, and in him alone, the power of apprehending 
 the Infinite, or, at least, trying to do so. Whatever may be said 
 of the want of evidence, or the unreasonableness of asking for 
 it, man alone has the faculty of seizing on, and believing in, an 
 Unknown Power. 
 
 'Aj< Op W7T09 is interpreted as " 6 JW a8pwv." 
 
 It is neither civilization, nor Revelation, nor Wisdom, nor 
 Morality, that does this : it is the man, and it is evidenced 
 in the lowest, and most degraded, Savage, whom we are obliged 
 to class as man, and who yet, so far, justifies our classification. 
 
 Far be it from me to say, or imply, one word against the 
 Truth, the reality, the power, of the Christian Religion of 
 the Nineteenth Century: without it life would be poor indeed: 
 let me enumerate the features of that Religion : 
 
 I. The Monotheism of a Deity. 
 II. The necessity of personal Morality. 
 
 III. The admission of sinfulness, and need of Salvation by 
 
 a Saviour. 
 
 IV. An indwelling Holy Spirit. 
 
 V. The conception of Future Rewards and Punishments. 
 VI. Love, not Fear, governing the relation of the Creator 
 to His poor children. 
 VII. The worship of the Creator in spirit and truth. 
 VIII. Complete tolerance of the belief of others. 
 
 IX. Doing unto others what we should wish others to 
 
 do unto us. 
 X. Obedience to, and an abiding Hope in, God, and Faith 
 
 in Christ. 
 XI. Love to our neighbour without any exception. 
 XII. Equality of both sexes in this world and the next. 
 
 Ever and anon from the non-Christian world comes up some 
 glimpse of the admission of some of these features, as will 
 be evidenced in the following pages, but some are totally 
 absent: none more so than tolerance of the opinion of others: 
 it seems so strange, that the Kings of Judah should have 
 thought themselves at liberty to change backwards and forwards 
 the Religious Worship of their people, oscillating from Hezekiah 
 to Manasseh, and from him to Josiah : the Hindu and the 
 Grasco-Roman were ever tolerant, and the same may be said 
 of the Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Confucian forms of belief; but 
 the Christian and Mahometan have been intolerant to a frightful
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
 extent, using the Arm of the Flesh to torture and slay : Arch- 
 deacon Farrar justly remarks, that " God knows of no orthodoxy 
 " but the Truth : the attempt to identify orthodoxy with pre- 
 " conceived, and purely traditional, opinion is rooted in 
 " cowardice, and has been prolific in casuistry and disaster." 
 (Expositor, vol. ix, p. n.) 
 
 Paul quoted one line only of the far-famed passage of A'ratus 
 from the Poem <Patudfieva (300 B.C.) : 
 
 e*c A109 dp^icpeada, tov oviciroT ui'ipc? ewpev 
 dppTjrov ' pearai ce Aio? Traaai jnev d^/viat, 
 Traaaih avQpw7rwv a<yopai ' /near)] ce OaXacrrra, 
 kcii Xtyitej'69 ' ' 7tuist>] ie A109 Ke^pnpeOa TravTe<s' 
 Too r^jap Kal r*/evo9 eafiev. 
 
 Perhaps the sentiment contained in the last half-line was 
 a quotation from a still older Poet, for we find it again in the 
 Hymn to Jupiter by Cleanthes, who also lived in the third 
 century B.C., and the solemn earnest beauty of these lines, which 
 I quote below, have never been surpassed by any Asiatic or 
 European writer of any period : 
 
 YlVCuit' dOavarwv, 7ro\vwvvpe Tra^iKpcncs cuci, 
 Zev, (f)vaews dp^ip/e, vo/liov fiera iruvra Kvficpi'wu, 
 ^(t?pe. 2e r jnp iravreaai Oe/aa OinjToTrri wpoaaviav. 
 Ek goo <yctp ryej'o? eapev, ins ftinijfia Xa^oi'Te* 
 Motij'Of, ocya £u>ei T6 icat epirei Oini-r eV< <yatav. 
 Tif ae KdOvTrinjaw, Kal aov k/j«tos alev deiaw. 
 2o< in 7ruv oie Koff/tio 1 } eXiffaopevov Trepi ryaiav 
 YleiOemi rj ksv uyifi, Kat ckwv vtto o~e?o Kpareirai, 
 Oi'ie tl n/i<yi>eTai ep^ov eV< ^Ooi't aov Bt^a, icufiov, 
 0<Ve Km aiQcpiov Oeiov 7ru\ov, oct ivi irowrw, 
 IlX/yi' oTroaa pe^ovai kukoi a(f)eTeprj(Tii> dvotais. 
 
 Paul was not like so many Missionaries of modern time, 
 ignorant of the sacred books of the Heathen. The Hindu 
 books are as great or greater than those of the Greeks. I 
 could quote passages from them of the most lofty character. 
 
 Only a short time ago Cardinal Vaughan quoted the follow- 
 ing passage from Xavier : " Who can sit complacent and self- 
 satisfied at home, while hell is being filled with the souls of the 
 Heathen}" This seems to be a very bold assumption with 
 regard to the Heathen, and a Spaniard of a nation, red with 
 the blood of Protestants and Jews, might be more reticent as to 
 future punishment of awful sins. 
 
 It may be reverently admitted, even by those, to whom Christ 
 is the beginning, centre, and end, of their lives, that the non- 
 Christian world in present and past times is capable of receiving
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
 influence from God : the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and 
 He influenced the heart of Cyrus in favour of the Jews : 
 " Non sine Diis" may be written on the History of mankind. 
 Socrates, Buddha, Kong-Fu-Tsee, Zoroaster, the Hindu Sages, 
 received a supernatural elevation of their moral and intellectual 
 faculties : in fact, they were favoured through the fog around 
 their generation to recognise the existence of Moral Truth, 
 and to see God. It may be boldly said, that each one of us, 
 who allows his thoughts to wander on Heaven's track, whether 
 in the wakeful hours of the night, when he is alone with God, 
 or in his solitary walks, when he is alone with the magnificence 
 of God's Works, or when he is alone and wrapped up in thoughts 
 of God, has deeper introspection of Truth, a sudden lifting up 
 for a moment of his aspirations, for the Holy Spirit thus works, 
 and in all times has worked, with the Human Soul : we must 
 not presume to shorten the hand of God in His touch of His 
 poor children of elder centuries, or heathen environment in 
 modern times: if it were His will, by one word all mankind 
 could be brought to Christ this very day. Remember Peter's 
 words, Acts, x, 34, 35, " no respecter of persons," TrpoawTro\!]Tnrj<i. 
 Remember Paul's words at Athens and Lystra : he did not 
 begin his message of a new Religion by denouncing the old, 
 as so many foolish Missionaries do : " what ye worship in 
 ignorance I set forth unto you." 
 
 The study of the Religion of barbarous tribes is even more 
 important from the point of view of this essay than that of a 
 civilized Nation. In the latter we have the lucubrations of high 
 culture by men, who thought calmly and deeply, such men as 
 Socrates and Buddha : there is more of man, and less of God. 
 In the latter it is the unadulterated touch of God upon the 
 intellect of poor, uneducated man : but for God it would not 
 have existed. We may venture to say, that not Moses only, but 
 Plato, and his like, were in their own degree 7raiSa<yu}<y t ia xp l<T7 ° 1 '- 
 
 Religious convictions, words, and practices, should never be 
 laughed at : to do so indicates an irreligious mind : the exhibition 
 of Idols brought home from Africa at Missionary Meetings, in 
 order to raise a smile on the ignorant members of the lower 
 second class, or Sunday-school children, is a disgrace. Place 
 such objects away in Museums alongside of the Ark of the 
 Covenant, and the seven-branched candlestick, and the Palladium, 
 and the tripod of Delphi, and the Brazen Serpent, and the Two 
 Tables of Stone, when they are found. Religion even in a mis- 
 taken form is one of the highest outcomes of the Human Race : 
 we know what Atheism and Agnosticism mean. The feeling after 
 God, if haply you could find him, ennobles the Human Race. 
 A competent author, Max Midler (Science of Religion, p. 263), 
 writes : " The intention of Religion, wherever we meet it, is holy ;
 
 ( 6 ) 
 
 " however imperfect and childish it may be, it always places the 
 " Human Soul in the presence of God : however imperfect and 
 " childish may be the conception of God, it always represents 
 " the highest ideal of perfection, which the Human Soul at the 
 " time being, with reference to its environment, can reach, and 
 " grasp. It places the Human Soul in the presence of its 
 " highest Ideal ; it lifts it above the level of ordinary goodness, 
 " and produces at least a yearning after a higher and better life, 
 " a life in the light of God." 
 
 The messages conveyed by the different non- Christian 
 Religions, if properly looked at, all converge in due time in the 
 more complete message of the Gospel. We hardly sufficiently 
 admit, how much mankind owes to Plato, and to the doctrines of 
 Buddha. Both these epoch-making individuals lived centuries 
 before Anno Domini, and left their mark upon Oriental, and 
 Occidental, thought, never to be effaced. It is stated, and truly 
 stated, that the Religion of Christ has been paganized, but 
 in that Paganism there were Messages of Humanity, Brother- 
 hood, Self-Sacrifice, zeal for the Souls of others than their own 
 Race, general benevolence, which the Hebrew never knew, and 
 knows not to this day : having broken his law before the Exile, 
 he kept it on his return to Palestine according to his lights, and 
 hugged himself as an inheritor of Promises ; but he cared not a 
 straw for the rest of the world, which might go in darkness for 
 all that concerned him : he was cruel beyond the cruelty of 
 other Nations : he left no single Monument of Art or Science : 
 he made no single discovery to enlighten the world : in an 
 epoch of Inscriptions on stone, and brick, metal, and papyri, he 
 left nothing, but the one book of the Old Testament, and but 
 for the Greek Translation made at Alexandria, he would have 
 withheld that from the eyes of the Gentile, if he had been 
 able : he perished out of his own land eighteen centuries ago, 
 while the lordly Races of Eastern Asia have maintained their 
 tenets, and their Worship, to this day. It has been the fashion 
 to exalt the Hebrew above other Nations, because of him came 
 Christ after the flesh, and to him was committed the oracles 
 of God ; but the mighty Nations, and civilizations, of Greece, 
 Rome, India, and China, were in all things, moral and material, 
 infinitely superior to the insignificant Hebrew. 
 
 With regard to Buddha, much has been written, and some 
 rash assertions made : if it be alleged, that any portion of the 
 teaching of the New Testament was derived from the teaching 
 of Buddha, a direct negative may be emphatically given on the 
 grounds of the absence of contact ; but with regard to Socrates 
 and Plato, bearing in mind the existence of Jewish colonies at 
 Alexandria, and everywhere, the reply must be made with 
 hesitation : no assertion is made, but a negative cannot be
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 recorded on the ground of want of possible contact. I quote 
 the following expressions of opinion : 
 
 " Plato was regarded by the Early Fathers in the light of 
 " another Apostle of the Gentiles. Justin Martyr, Jerome, 
 " Lactantius, all speak of him as the wisest and greatest of 
 " philosophers. Augustine calls him his converter, and thanks 
 " God, that he became acquainted with Plato first, and the Gospel 
 " afterwards. Eusebius declared, that he, alone of all the Greeks, 
 " had attained the Porch of Truth. It is easy to understand the 
 " grounds of this feeling. Passages from his dialogues might be 
 " multiplied to prove that close similarity, which exists between 
 " them and the Scriptures, especially the Pentateuch. The 
 " picture of the ideal Socrates, preaching Justice and Temperance, 
 " and opposing the self-assertion of the Pharisee of his age ; 
 " the humility of the earnest inquirer, and soberness of Truth ; 
 " his declaration at his trial, that he will obey God rather than 
 " men, and fear not those, who are only able to kill the body ; the 
 " description of the just man persecuted, scourged, tortured, 
 " and finally impaled : such passages serve to explain the prayer 
 " of Erasmus, who added to the invocation of the Saints in his 
 " library, ' Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis,' and the belief of so 
 " many of the Fathers that Plato, like St. John the Baptist, was 
 " a forerunner of Christ. 
 
 " Again : 
 
 " (i) The faith in the Immortality of the Soul, 
 " (z) The pollution of Sin, 
 " (3) The likeness of Virtue to God, 
 " (4) The idea of a word sown in the heart, 
 " (5) The parable of the Cave, and the Light of the 
 Upper World, 
 
 " might be quoted to show the foreshadowing of Christianity so 
 " often traced to Plato. 
 
 " Add to this the remark, that men should persevere in search 
 " of the Truth, taking the best of Human words to bear them up, 
 " as on a raft, through the stormy waters of life ; but their voyage 
 " on this frail bark would be perilous, unless they might hope to 
 " meet with some securer stay, some Word of God, it might be. 
 " Augustine thought that Plato might have listened to Jeremiah 
 " in Egypt." (Plato : Clifton Collins, p. 193.) 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman remarks in Callista, p. 227 : "Religion could 
 " not be without hope. To worship a being, who did not speak 
 " to us, recognise us, love us, was not Religion ; it might be 
 " a duty, or a merit, but the instinctive notion of Religion is the 
 " Soul's response to a God, who has taken notice of the Soul : 
 " it was a living intercourse, or a mere name." 
 
 In the lately discovered monuments of Egypt and Assyria we
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
 can see the ancient monarchs offering tribute to their tutelar 
 deities, Amen Ra, or Ashur : can we think that Religion was 
 not to them a positive fact ? 
 
 Bishop Westcott writes : "As each Nation contributes some- 
 " thing to the Fulness of the Life of Humanity, and something to 
 " the knowledge of Man's powers, so is it with the manifestation 
 " of Religious belief and aspirations. The Religious History 
 " of the World is the Soul of History. The natural voice of 
 " humanity proclaims with no uncertain sound, that God hath 
 " made himself known in various ways at various times." 
 (Gospel of Life, p. 109.) 
 
 " Noble principles are found in the teaching of all Religious 
 " systems; that God is the author of all Truth, and all right 
 " impulses even in heathen minds, is readily admitted." 
 (Ellinwod's Oriental Religion, p. 224.) 
 
 The early Greek Fathers, especially Justin Martyr and Clement 
 of Alexandria, realized the fact, that there was a worker and of 
 God going on during the apparent isolation of the heathen from 
 that narrow Hebrew Region, in which the Spirit had revealed 
 Him. Justin says, that the Truths in the utterance of Heathen 
 Poetry and Philosophy are due to the fact, that a seed of 
 the Word is inborn (e/nfiinov) in every Race of man. Those, who 
 grasped the Truth according to the portion of the seed in them, 
 just as Christians, lived according to the knowledge and con- 
 templation of the whole Word, that is to say Christ ; in fact, that 
 Socrates, Heraclitus, and those like them, and Abraham, and 
 Elias, were Christians before Christ in the flesh, though Christ 
 indeed was tt/joto'to/co? t?Js ktioews. (Gospel of Life, pp. 116, 117.) 
 It is indeed a Godless, and non-Christian, conception to hold, 
 that all the Nations of the world, who have not embraced the 
 Religion of Christ, are outcasts, forgotten by God. Are they 
 not rather waiting their appointed time ? 
 
 I quote extracts from the pages of a well-known writer, from' 
 whom I differ in many things, yet agree in this (Max Miiller's 
 " Science of Religion," 1873, p. 224) : 
 
 " We admire the temples of the ancient Rome in Egypt, 
 ' Babylonia, Greece, and Italy : can we call the Deities, to whom 
 ' they were consecrated, mere idols and images, and class such 
 ' men as Pericles, Phidias, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Marcus 
 ' Aurelius, as worshippers of stocks and stones ? Neither 
 ' Art, nor Poetry, nor Philosophy could have been possible 
 ' without Religion. If we believe, that there is a God, who 
 ' created Heaven and earth, and ruleth all by His unceasing 
 ' Providence, we cannot believe, that Millions of Human 
 ' beings were in the time of their ignorance so utterly 
 ' abandoned, that their Religion was a falsehood, their whole 
 ' life a mockery, their Worship a farce."
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 And there were such men as Socrates, Epict^tus, Sdneca, 
 Plato, Gautama Buddha, and Kong-Fu-Tsee. 
 
 Justin Martyr remarks (Apol. ii, 83, "Survivals in Christianity," 
 p. 50) that "men of every Race, that Socrates and others, 
 were Christians because they lived according to Reason, which 
 is the Divine Word immanent in the world." 
 
 I quote the opinion of another writer on the subject : 
 "The great Religious conceptions of the world, with the 
 " exception of Judaism and Christianity, have hitherto been 
 " treated by Historians and Theologians with the greatest 
 " unfairness. Every act in the lives of their founders, which 
 " showed, that they were but men, has been eagerly seized 
 " upon, and judged without mercy : many of their doctrines 
 " have been distorted : acts of Worship, merely because they 
 " differed from the preconceptions of the writer, have been 
 " held up to ridicule and contempt. The consequence has 
 *' been, that Christianity has been torn away from the sacred 
 " context of the History of the World. The History of the non- 
 " Christian Religious conceptions represent to man the Divine 
 " Education of the Human Race." 
 
 Philo writes : " Goodness and kindness were the final causes 
 of all Creation." It is no new idea to claim for the poor 
 heathen sonship of God : Mutianus Rufus, a Canon of 
 Gotha before the Reformation, wrote : Quid alium est verus 
 Christianus, verus Dei Alius quam, ut Paulus dicit, " Sapientia 
 Dei," quae non solim adfuit Judaeis in angusta. Syriae regione, 
 sed Graecis, et Italis, et Germanis, quamquam vario ritu 
 Religionem observarentur. (Hibbert Lecture: Beard — Reforma- 
 tion, p. 50.) 
 
 Read the following quotation from a Review thirty years old : 
 " The Apostolic age bears witness, such as no other age has 
 " borne, to the depth and vitality of those Religious Truths, 
 " which rest on the greatest realities of the Universe. They 
 " have been buried for centuries under a hard incrustation 
 " of Human Dogmatism, till the deep life beating within is 
 " scarcely perceptible any longer. Christianity will then re- 
 " sume its Apostolic fervour, when, going back to the original 
 " fountain of" Faith in the Human Soul, and, renouncing the 
 " fruitless controversies about forms of opinions, which derive 
 " their value from intellectual needs of different minds, it shall 
 " throw itself once more without distrust and reservation on 
 " that Eternal Religion of the heart and conscience, which is 
 " the utterance of God's Spirit within us, which Christ once 
 " acted in the narrow circle of Palestinian life, and which His 
 " followers, believing in the perpetuity of heavenly life, have 
 " been striving for nearly 2000 years to spread over the world." 
 
 Dean Stanley writes: "The thoughts of man have grown
 
 ( io ) 
 
 " wider: we have learnt, that Religion can be degraded, when 
 " it loses the vivifying and elevating contact of every-day life. 
 " Ecclesiastical degradation means Spiritual decay : the chief 
 " object of Religion is to teach us the right way of living 
 " the true life of man." (Lectures, 1867, p. xvi.) 
 
 Archbishop Trench, in his Hulsean Lecture, 1846, p. 136, 
 writes : " I would fain show, that it would be a grievous 
 " deficiency, if our Christian faith as concerns the whole 
 " ancient world, except the Jewish, stood in relation to nothing, 
 " which men had hitherto thought, or felt, or hoped, or 
 " believed ; rested on no broader historic basis than the Jewish 
 " Religion would supply. It will be profitable to enquire, 
 " whether we may not contemplate the relations of the 
 " absolute Truth to the ancient Religions of the world under 
 " an aspect, in which we shall cease altogether from regarding 
 " with suspicion these apparent anticipations of good things 
 "given us in Christ; in which, instead of being secretly 
 " embarrassed by them, and hardly knowing exactly how to 
 " deal with, or where to range them, we shall joyfully accept 
 " these presentiments of the Truth, so far as they are satis- 
 " factorily made out, as enhancing the greatness and the glory 
 " of the Truth itself; and as being, so far as they are allowed 
 " to have any weight, confirmations of it." 
 
 Archbishop Benson, at Exeter Hall, Nov., 1893, spoke thus: 
 " No doubt there is scarcely a Religion, in which you cannot 
 "trace something that is above Humanity; but how does our 
 " Lord, and how did His Apostles, treat that Fact ? Have they 
 " not made it plain, that all notions of God in the past, attained 
 " by the light of Nature, as we call it, by the Spirit of God, that 
 " is, stirring and lighting every man that cometh into the world, 
 " were all a preparation for that complete Religion, which 
 " it takes Humanity long ages to prepare for. Why, the very 
 " fact, that He died for all men is sufficient to establish the right 
 " of all men to know the Fact. If a great inheritance is left 
 " to a man, is it not a matter of common honesty, that he should 
 " be informed, that this inheritance is his ? It is the very 
 " nature of the way, in which God has given us this knowledge, 
 " that man should only know it through man. He does not 
 " reveal it in lightnings upon the skies, but reveals it from man 
 " to man, from lip to lip. That is the only way, in which 
 " man could possibly know that, which it is the right of every 
 " man to know, because this Fact of Christ is theirs." 
 
 Mr. Lefroy, of the Delhi Mission, 1894, is very bold, and 
 reflects the feeling of all, who think deeply and lovingly of 
 the poor heathen in past and present times : " We hold, that 
 " there is no Nation in the world, which has been omitted from 
 " the Providence and discipline of God, no Nation, in which
 
 ( 11 ) 
 
 " He has left Himself without a witness finding its expression, 
 " however distorted or perverted, in their creed and thoughts, 
 " no Nation therefore which cannot find in Christ, not the 
 " destruction, but the fulfilment and completion of all that 
 " is best and truest in the past." 
 
 Bishop Westcott writes : " It seems, as if a careful examination 
 " of the Religious teaching of representative Masters of the West 
 " would help towards a better understanding of the Christian 
 " Creed." (Religious Thoughts in the West, 1891 : Preface.) 
 
 A mistaken burst of occasional piety on the part of the 
 Hebrews, with long intervals of gross Idolatry, and a steady 
 refusal of Christians to look into the matter, free from pre- 
 judice and fanaticism, has until this generation led them to 
 condemn all the Religious conceptions of the elder world, 
 and declare, that the beliefs and Worship of the non-Christian 
 world at the present day, is nothing but a master-work of Satan. 
 Considering that the population of the world is 1400 Millions, 
 and that only one-third are even nominal Christians, it would 
 seem, that the strong man is out of possession of his own 
 house, and that the hand of the Ruler of the Universe is 
 shortened. Can this be so ? What are the Facts ? The early 
 Nations were essentially pious, feeling after their great Creator, 
 if haply they could find Him ; if they were Agnostics, they were 
 unwillingly so from lack of knowledge, and not from a per- 
 verted superfluity of knowledge. A congenital Instinct had 
 been granted to Man to utter articulate sounds, and turn to 
 his great Creator even as the sunflower turns to the sun. " Self, 
 the World, God," indicates the relation, which man occupied to 
 his fellow-men, and the great Unknown : Language in the 
 one case, and Religion in the other, was the mode of com- 
 munication. The Egyptian, Indo-Iranian, Grseco-Latin, Kelt- 
 Teuton-Slav, recognised, and bowed to the Power of Nature, 
 the Strong One, whose might was felt to be irresistible, con- 
 stant, unchanging, and orderly, in its operation, yet full of pity, 
 tender mercy, and benevolence ; providing for their wants by 
 the luxuriant abundance of the Earth and the Water. They 
 had no doubt of the presence of an eternal and active Intelli- 
 gence, whom they tried in their weak, foolish, way to conciliate. 
 
 I quote the sentiments of an accomplished writer : " As we 
 " study, we begin to see, what ought never to have been 
 " doubted, that there is no Religion without God, and, as 
 " Augustine of Hippo expresses it, there is no false Religion, 
 " which does not contain some elements of Truth." We may 
 return the compliment, that there is no form of the One True 
 Religion, which has not some false elements clinging to it, 
 the remanet of the conception, out of which it was developed. 
 
 It is bold to state, and dangerous to weak, narrow, minds to
 
 ( 12 ) 
 
 hear the statement, that our Heavenly Father has manifested 
 Himself to His poor children at all times and in all places in 
 the mode, in which He knew that the state of the intellectual 
 culture of each exalted them to comprehend. Rightly or 
 wrongly (I think wrongly), the first work of the modern Mis- 
 sionary of the Nineteenth Century is supposed to be to teach 
 his converts, or inquirers, to read and write, to give them 
 a cheap surface -Education, and introduce them to printed 
 literature ; it is assumed, that the oral teaching of the Master, 
 and His Apostles, and of the early centuries, would not enable 
 the neo-Christian to advance : this shows that to the modern 
 notion Culture precedes, or accompanies, the Christian Faith. 
 Culture is the outcome of Peace, Wealth, orderly government, 
 tolerance, and justice between man and man. This is possible 
 in the Nineteenth Century : was it within the comprehension of 
 the elder world ? How intolerant were the kings of Israel and 
 Judah ! What shall be said of the Hebrew people down to the 
 assassination of Stephen ? It is clear, that admitting fully that 
 the Religion of the Hebrews was specially ordained by God 
 for that petty Nation, which was never destined to rise beyond 
 the position of a Slave-Nation, in a very low state of Culture, 
 passing from the bondage of the Egyptians into that of the 
 Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians, and afterwards of the 
 Persians, Greeks, and Romans, until their utter extinction as 
 a Nation, and the supercession of their Religion by a later 
 conception, that later conception was suited to a state of 
 Society much higher advanced in the scale of Culture, and 
 calculated, by its freedom from all local ties, when the wall of 
 separation of one Nation from another was dashed down, with 
 its sweet reasonableness, and holy elasticity, to dominate the 
 Globe, though that event seems now entirely out of all Human 
 calculation, and, owing to the vast annual increase of the non- 
 Christian population, at the rate of twelve Millions annually, 
 to be utterly out of all reasonable expectation. 
 
 Nor was the dispensation to the Jews ever intended, as far 
 as can be judged from the words of Isaiah and the other 
 Prophets, or permitted, to be permanent. The Religious 
 conceptions of the Zoroastrian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Con- 
 fucianist have existed for nearly three thousand years, but the 
 Mosaic dispensation at the best only lasted fourteen hundred 
 years, and in B.C. 397 Malachi, the last of the Prophets, uttered 
 the following words : 
 
 " I will be great among the Heathen, says the Lord ; in every 
 place incense shall be offered in My name from the rising to 
 the going down of the Sun." The introduction of the term 
 "incense" precludes the application of the words to the 
 Christian Religion, where, except in degraded forms of Worship,
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 incense has no place either in precept or practice. Viewed in 
 that light, the scorn, and want of sympathy, with which the 
 modern Missionary treats the pious non-Christian worshipper 
 of his ancestral Faith, is a cause of surprise : it arises from the 
 Egotism, and Albocracy, of the modern Teuton and Latin 
 Races, and not from the precepts of the Holy Religion, which 
 they are commissioned to convey. 
 
 More appalling, and confounding all expectations, is the 
 new crop of Religious conceptions, of error, which stand in 
 the way of Conversion to Christianity, much more spiritual 
 than the older conceptions, and accompanied by the highest 
 Morality : the Aria-Somaj, the Brahmo-Somaj, Theosophism, 
 Mormonism, the Hau-Hau of New Zealand, Agnosticism, 
 Unitarianism. In the early centuries of Christianity, there 
 were the worshippers of Isis, and the Great Mother, Mithraism, 
 Manichaeism, but they were hunted down, and extirpated, by the 
 Christians. Such unchristian violence cannot be used now : 
 the majority of the new conceptions of the Nineteenth Century 
 put forth the desire to worship a pure God, to live a pure life, 
 to consider all men as brothers : this platform represents a 
 mighty advance of the conception of Religion in its broadest 
 sense, but on non-Christian lines. 
 
 We must be prepared for one thing: all Religious conceptions 
 are made for man, all mankind, free from all degrading 
 necessities, such as circumcision, tattooing, caste-marks, and 
 connection with Idolatrous survivals, such as the Arabian Kaaba- 
 Stone : History tells us, that when a world-wide conception 
 impinges on different Races, on different rounds of Culture, with 
 different historical and political environment, it does not lose 
 its originality, but adapts itself: the different Churches of Asia, 
 North Africa, and Europe, differed materially in their external 
 form : the great sin of the Church of Rome was the desire to 
 introduce uniformity, and submission to a so-called Vice-Regent 
 of God, an erring man, aided by a most corrupt, self-seeking, 
 Council : it has notably failed : it would be folly on the part 
 of any Protestant Church to attempt to act in this way. The 
 Negro Churches of West Africa, the Churches in South India, 
 South Africa, the Extreme Orient, and Oceania, will never 
 submit to such a domination. 
 
 The following great Truths have been worked out, and it 
 cannot be denied, that the ancient Religious conceptions, which 
 preceded the great Anno Domini, contributed to the great store, 
 of which the Nineteenth Century is heir : 
 
 I. The Unity of God. 
 II. The Spirituality of Religion. 
 III. The Substitution of Prayer for Sacrifice.
 
 ( H ) 
 
 IV. The Highest Conception of Morality. 
 V. The great gift of Self-Sacrifice. 
 
 VI. The Hope of Immortality, or, in other words, the Sound 
 of Glory ringing in our ears. 
 
 The unique characteristics of the Religion of Christ, being 
 based on Faith, lie outside the orbit of this Essay, which 
 accepts nothing incapable of scientific proof, or reasonable 
 deductions from ascertained facts.
 
 ( 15 ) 
 
 CAP. I. A SUPERNATURAL POWER. 
 
 i. Existence of such a Power. 
 
 A. Anthropomorphism. 
 
 B. Monolatry. 
 
 C. Monotheism. 
 
 D. Polytheism. 
 
 2. Place of Residence of such a Power. 
 
 3. Theophanies, Visions, Dreams, Good and Evil Spirits. 
 
 4. Primeval Revelation : was there any ? 
 
 5. Substitution of Idols made by men's hands for an im- 
 
 personal Divinity. 
 
 6. Fatherhood of God. 
 
 7. Threats of worshippers uttered against their gods. 
 
 1. Existence of such a Power. 
 
 It may with great confidence be asserted, that no Race of 
 men, however degraded, has been found, who have not a more 
 or less distinct conception of a Power greater than themselves, 
 whether for good, or for evil, whom it is their interest to 
 conciliate, and their duty to obey. 
 
 Bishop Philip Brooke writes thus: "The Messenger of 
 " Christianity finds some consciousness of the fact, that the 
 " world belongs to God, wherever he goes. No land is so dark, 
 " that there is not some such light there. No brutal savagedom 
 " so savage, that in some breast of nobler sort, or it may be, 
 " kept only in some fantastic rite, whose spiritual meaning has 
 " long been lost, there is not uttered some craving for the true 
 " nobility of servantship to God. It cannot be explained 
 " away." 
 
 Peter, the Apostle, admits the fact : " In every Nation he. that 
 feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." 
 (Acts, x, 35.) 
 
 Paul, the Apostle, remarked: "Who in times past suffered 
 all Nations to walk in their own ways." " He left not Himself 
 without witness." (Acts, xiv, 16, 17.)
 
 ( 16 ) 
 
 Bishop Westcott remarks in his Gospel of Life (1874, p. 19): 
 " Christianity assumes as its foundation : 
 
 " (1) The existence of an Infinite Personal God. 
 "(2) The existence of a finite Human will. 
 
 " This antithesis is assumed, and not proved. No arguments 
 " can establish it. It is a primary intuition, not a deduction ; 
 " it is capable of illustration from what we observe around 
 " us : but, if either proposition be denied, no reasoning can 
 " establish it." 
 
 The Latin Poets teem with quotations, indicating that the 
 existence of God is recognised, that He controls the affairs 
 of men, that it is wise to obey God, that it is impious to deny 
 Him or oppose Him : it may be summed up in the apophthegm : 
 
 "Nihil humanarum rerum sine numine geritur, 
 Nihil Diis invitis fieri potest." (Bible-Echoes, p. 189.) 
 
 " Divina prudentia agitur mundus." 
 
 What was inexorable Fate with the Gr^eco-Latin Races, 
 "Mo/pa," " necessitas " ? What in very truth was "Karma" 
 with the Buddhist, though he declared that there was no God ? 
 " Fata negant " : " Sic voluere Parcse," say Virgil and Horace, 
 when in despair on the subject of undeserved affliction, or 
 unmerited prosperity. Homer writes, Iliad, I, 5, A<o? 
 i-reXeieru fiovX)'}. The Indian mind reached to a lower depth : 
 it admits the guilt of the sufferer in past life as all the 
 cause of his trouble ; he anticipates the reward of the innocent 
 in the next life. 
 
 Herodotus was essentially a Religious man : speaking of the 
 rumour, which ran through the Greek Army at Mycale, on the 
 morning of the battle, of a victory gained the same day at 
 Plataea, he says: "Many things prove to me, that the gods 
 take a part in the affairs of men," and yet, about 450 B.C., 
 the gods, under the influence of Philosophy, were departing 
 from their Grecian temples : it is reported, that Herodotus was 
 present in the Theatre of Bacchus at some of the great dramas, 
 and he would then have heard the Divine Voice in some one of 
 the great utterances of the actors, or the chorus. He must have 
 felt ouhev uvev trw Qewv ; but what those gods were he did not 
 venture to speculate : he was too wide a traveller, and too deep 
 a thinker, for that. 
 
 The Idea of God may be shrouded in darkness, but it is there : 
 Professor Legge writes, that the Idea of one God, and one 
 only God, existed among the Chinese from the earliest time, 
 though it has been doubted by some writers, and is certainly 
 obscured by the degraded conceptions of later ages. Nature
 
 ( 17 ) 
 
 was conceived to be a manipulation of a great Power, and 
 peopled with Spirits in subordination to Him. 
 
 We must recollect, that the name, by which the Great Power 
 is known, is unimportant. By many names men knew Him: 
 Jehovah, Jove, Lord, Shaddai, Elohim, Allah, Mah£swara, Bog, 
 Deus, fleo?, Khuda, Gott : in China they cannot get beyond the 
 word, which represents the Heavens. The character attributed 
 to Him is of the prime importance. All other names are but 
 the shadow of the reality. The Fatherhood of God stands 
 confessed in the words of Homer, Zed ira-rep ; of Virgil, 
 " Hominum pater atque Deorum." 
 
 Hear Bishop Selwyn the younger: "In all ages, and in all 
 Races, men have felt after this great Truth : God has not left 
 Himself without a witness, and the Human heart, led by that 
 witness, whether internal or external, has always stretched out 
 its hands (it may be unconsciously) towards the Fatherhood 
 of God. The teaching of Christ is its very highest revelation : 
 ' Our Father, which art in Heaven.' In place of all the 
 countless Spirits, which they believe in, we tell them of the 
 one great omnipotent God, who made the world : when they 
 have grasped this truth in some measure, we tell them in the 
 name of Christ, that God is our Father, and that His name 
 is Love." (Ramsden Sermons, Cambridge.) 
 Driver remarks, on pp. 302, 303 of his Introduction to the 
 Old Testament, that the fact, that God has pity on all Nations, 
 is taught in the Book of Jonah ; and the last verse of that 
 Book indicates, that God has pity on the cattle also, as well as 
 ignorant men. 
 
 Those, who have studied the great dramas of the Greek 
 Tragedians, must feel that they are in the presence of those 
 Deities, whom the Athenians worshipped. The Tragedians would 
 not dare place in their mouths words unworthy of them. Truth, 
 Purity, Retribution for sin, obedience to the Divine Will : these 
 are the watchwords : the audience accepted with reverence the 
 oracles of their God, the words of the ' Deus ex machina..' Their 
 view of life is stern and severe: individual, family, Nation: 
 their moral is always good : sorrow follows sin : vengeance will 
 certainly find out the offender, though a long time is allowed 
 to elapse : with the same measure, that a man metes, it will be 
 measured to him again : suffering is the only road to true 
 happiness, if it comes in the path of Duty. The Hindu sages 
 elaborated the Idea still more fully. In the grand Epics of 
 Homer and Virgil the Immortals above are as fully occupied in 
 planning, and contriving, as the poor mortals below. Another 
 view of the subject is presented in the utterances of Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, and Ezekiel : it is taken for granted, that they were 
 commissioned by Jehovah to make certain utterances : the
 
 ( 18 ) 
 
 mode, in which the message came to them, is not stated : the 
 word of the Lord, " dabar Yahveh," came to them. 
 
 The question, of course, arises to thoughtful minds : are we 
 in the Nineteenth Century a.d. further off from God than these 
 Prophets in the sixth century B.C. ? The Deity no longer appears 
 in Human form : the age of myths and legends has passed : 
 Prophecy, Miracles, Theophanies, Signs from Heaven, are no 
 longer in harmony with the Human intellect : but God is 
 very nigh unto us, for all that, for all that: He is in our midst, 
 when we assemble, and our bodies are the temples of the Holy 
 Spirit. The old machinery, and manner of speaking, have 
 passed away. 
 
 In the Egyptian papyri and Inscriptions we read of such 
 a Power (Hibbert Lecture: Renouf, p. 25): 
 
 (1) To whom no temple is raised. 
 
 (2) Who was not graven on stone. 
 
 (3) Whose shrine was never found in painted figures. 
 
 (4) Who had neither ministrants nor offerings. 
 
 (5) Whose abode was unknown. 
 
 But that Power was practically in the course of centuries lost 
 sight of. We meet in the Texts such phrases as this: (1) the 
 Self-existing one, (2) the Self-becoming one, (3) the One, the 
 One of Ones, (4) the One without a Second, (5) the beginners 
 of becoming from the first, (6) the One, who made all things, 
 but was not made. 
 
 I read the following Inscription on a Temple of Neith, at Said 
 in Egypt (Sacred Anthology, p. 65) : 
 
 " I am that, which has been, which is, which will be, and no 
 one has yet lifted the veil, which covers me." 
 
 " Nuk pa nuk : I am that I am." (Hibbert Lecture : Renouf.) 
 
 Some think, that AOi'jmj is a transposition of Neith. (Raw- 
 linson's Herodotus, II, ph. 106, 107.) 
 
 Dr. Ginsburg writes, that the Moabites felt towards Chemosh 
 the same feelings as the Hebrews to Yahveh, attributing to His 
 anger their defeats, to His favour their victories : this phrase 
 is retained in some modern prayers as the husk of an Idea, 
 which has long died, but it was a very present Idea in the 
 ancient world. 
 
 Religion is the one universal feature in the History of man- 
 kind, and the annals of no country introduce us to Atheism, 
 or Agnosticism : quite the contrary : we find the existence of 
 a Religion and a God, patent everywhere. 
 
 The Azteks of Mexico recognised the existence of a Supreme 
 Creator, and Lord of the Universe. (Prescott, I, p. 52.)
 
 ( 19 ) 
 
 The Idea of a Divinity is indeed the solution of the per- 
 plexity of existence : it comes by intuition, not by observation, 
 and gradually develops ; it does not require Science, or Phi- 
 losophy, to point out the Deity; in the elements, in the en- 
 vironment, on Earth, in Heaven, He is there, and no place can 
 be pointed out, where he is not. By introspection the lowest 
 savage works out the syllogism of self, the world, or the rest 
 of mankind, except himself, and something outside the world, 
 and self, but which controls all, and is God. 
 
 A . A nthropomorphism . 
 
 Nothing strikes the reader more painfully than this feature 
 in the Old Testament : of course, it stands out as, or even more, 
 conspicuously in other forms of Religious conception. Moses 
 goes so far as to arrange, that the Deity should only exhibit 
 "his hinder parts": but throughout we hear of the Deity 
 having ears, limbs, even weaknesses such as anger, infirmities 
 such as hate, love, hardness of heart, wrath, even revenge ; 
 vacillation of purpose, repentance (Driver, O.T. p. 114): this 
 cannot be explained by any reason such as the vagueness of 
 Oriental expressions, or poetical license, or mistaken transla- 
 tion : Elijah twits the Priests of Baal, that their gods could 
 not hear. Even down to the present epoch, Anthropomorphism 
 has not been got rid of. 
 
 In other Religious conceptions, the gods were actually men 
 with lusts and passions, partialities and prejudices. With rare 
 exceptions Idols are made in Human form entirely, as Rama, 
 and Krishna ; or partially as Ganesa, with the head of an 
 elephant, and Diana of Ephesus, a hideous monster. 
 
 The Idea of the Deity making a covenant with His poor 
 creatures is a Human conception, and even now in Christian 
 praver we have such expressions as "let your ears be open to 
 the prayers of your servant ; your protecting hand, your 
 observant eye": of course it means nothing beyond this, that 
 man cannot form a conception of the Deity except through the 
 known feature of poor Human Nature. The Asiatic makes his 
 god a dark brown. The African makes his god black; the 
 European naturally adopts a white colour. 
 
 Anthropomorphism seems to be an essential of all early 
 Religion. Man in his earliest stage worshipped stocks and 
 stones in their natural form : this was called Fetichism. As he 
 arrived at the conviction, that he himself was the centre of 
 animal existence ; as he found no other animal equal to him in 
 strength and cunning, in articulate speech, in the power of 
 leaving tokens behind by marks on the sand, and broken twigs
 
 ( 20 ) 
 
 in the forest, so that others coming after him could understand 
 his message ; as he became dimly conscious of the possession 
 of five senses, and the gift of accumulating experience, he 
 could no longer worship a brute beast (though, strange to say, 
 the highly-cultured Egyptians did so), and he could invest the 
 Deity, the creation of his intellect, and Religious instinct, with 
 no form of higher dignity than the one, which he himself 
 possessed : the eye, the ear, the mouth, the nose, the hand. 
 Then the shapeless stone assumed the rough Idea of the 
 Human form: the Old Testament tells us that "that form was 
 in God's own Imasre." 
 
 *o v 
 
 B. Monolatry. 
 
 Many narrow-minded religionists, even to this day, get an 
 idea, that God is their God, their peculiar God, who manages 
 their affairs, who cares for them : this is their Faith, a selfish form 
 of Faith : a Protestant would scarcely admit, that it is the same 
 God, who is Father of His Roman Catholic children, and of the 
 non-Christian world : the Jews had the same conception ; they 
 were before the time of josiah, not Monotheists, but " Mono- 
 latrists," or, as some call it, " Enotheists " : Yahveh was their 
 God, and looked after them : they had heard, that other tribes 
 had Baal, Rimmon, Chemosh, Ashtoreth : they did not deny 
 this : but their God was God of all gods, who had power to 
 influence Gentile Monarchs, such as Cyrus and Darius, in the 
 interest of His people (i.e. themselves). Gradually they came 
 out of this fog: we hear no more of the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, except for purposes of argument as regards a Future 
 State ; but Nehemiah is represented as praying at Shushan 
 to the God of Heaven, the same title, which Cyrus had given 
 Him (II Chron. xxxvi, 23). 
 
 Do Christians reflect on this ? God is not the God of the 
 Christians only. Christ did not die for the Christians only, but 
 for the whole world. It would be questioning God's wisdom and 
 justice to assert, that the great people of India and China were 
 condemned to everlasting punishment, because they knew not the 
 God and Saviour, who had never been preached to them. Nor 
 can we attribute to the machinations of Satan the existences of 
 the great Religions of China, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, 
 Greece, and Rome : the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 teaches another lesson. God was not left without a witness 
 even in the childhood of the world, and it is the mark of an 
 arrogant, degraded, unchristian, spirit, to denounce the Religious 
 weaknesses of Nations, who never had the chance of being 
 Christians. 
 
 When we reflect calmly on the Features of the great Book-
 
 ( 21 ) 
 
 Religions, and the mass of non-Christian Ideas and customs 
 absorbed into itself by so-called Christianity, which is so far 
 from the Gospel taught in Palestine, and preached by the 
 Apostles, when we consider the loathsome sins of sinners in 
 Christian cities, such as London, we may as well pause, for as 
 far as concerns the masses Christianity has miserably failed : 
 and who are we, the most drunken Nation in Europe, to throw 
 dirt upon the Mahometan, and the ancient conceptions of 
 India and China, whom the Lord of the world has permitted to 
 exist for three thousand years ? had it pleased Him, they might 
 have passed away like the beautiful conceptions of Greece 
 and Rome. 
 
 In the fourth volume of Renan's posthumous work, 1893 
 (p. 131), appears the following : 
 
 " The Deutero-Isaiah had held out a prospect to all Nations 
 " to enter Jerusalem : Ezra and his successors closed the door. 
 " Jehovah became again the peculiar property, and the exclusive 
 " right, of the Hebrews ; their own particular Deity reappeared, 
 " a very Egoistical Deity, according to their views, very perverse 
 " and hostile to all the Human Race, except His Chosen 
 " People, very unjust to all the rest of His poor children. The 
 " Thora, as introduced by Ezra, was merely a scheme to bribe 
 " Jehovah by strict observance of certain rituals to get certain 
 " good things at His disposal : the caprice of this particular 
 " Deity had to be satisfied by services of hymns, by compli- 
 " ments to His Glory, and in return for the pleasure provided 
 " for Him He would give all the good things of the world : 
 " and much was to be done by His influencing the hearts 
 " of the men of this world, who held the physical force of 
 " Empire, on whom He was supposed to have a direct 
 " influence, though they were not His people." 
 
 If anyone doubts the Monolatrism of the Hebrews, let him 
 consider the title "God of all gods"; and Psalm lxxxvi, 
 8, 10: 
 
 " Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord ; 
 there is not one that can do as Thou doest." 
 
 " Thou art God alone." 
 
 Whatever was the date of this Psalm the utterances are 
 not those of one, who is a Monotheist, to whose mind the 
 existence of any other gods would be an absurdity. 
 
 C. Monotheism. 
 
 Just at the same time that it was brought home to Isaiah, 
 that the God hitherto called God of Israel was the only God, 
 and that there was none but Him, the same line of reasoning
 
 ( 22 ) 
 
 led him to perceive that, if that point were conceded, He must 
 be the God of all Mankind, Gentile as well as Jew : that word 
 Gentile came into existence in Isaiah's time : the elder Hebrew 
 had no thought beyond his own Nation, and a contemptuous 
 hatred to all outside. 
 
 There was another result of Monotheism, a faint conception 
 of the Perfection of the Deity : the Human mind, when it 
 arrived at the first Idea, passed on to the further conception, 
 that one so Powerful must be the Ideal of Perfection as regards 
 Human qualities, the very essence of Righteousness, the very 
 type of Sympathy, the impersonation of Law, Justice, Love, 
 and Pity. According to the Ideal thus formed of their Divinity 
 would be the permanence of their Faith, and the desire to 
 develop, and grow into His Likeness. From this conception 
 developed the Idea of a Future State, not such as is painted 
 by Homer, but one of Rewards and Punishments: the Indian 
 Sages got over this ethical difficulty by the conception of the 
 transmigration of Souls to a higher or lower sphere according 
 to the tenour of the life spent. 
 
 What grander description of the Infinite Deity can be cited 
 than this quotation from the great Sanskrit Poem, Raghuvansa, 
 by Kalidasa, the greatest of the Indian Bards ? 
 
 " He sat, that awful Deity, in state : 
 " His throne encircling heavenly armies wait ; 
 " Around His head celestial rays were shed ; 
 " Beneath His feet His conquered foes were spread ; 
 " To Him the trembling gods their homage brought : 
 " Incomprehensible in word or thought. 
 
 " O Thou, whom threefold might and splendour veil, 
 " Maker, Preserver, and Destroyer, hail ! 
 " Thy gaze surveys this world from clime to clime, 
 " Thyself immeasurable in space, or time : 
 " To no corrupt desires, no passions prone, 
 " Unconquered Conqueror, infinite, unknown. 
 " Though in one form Thou veil'st Thy might divine, 
 " Still at Thy pleasure every form is Thine : 
 " Pure crystals thus prismatic hues assume, 
 " As varying lights, and varying tints, illume. 
 " Men think Thee absent : Thou art ever near, 
 " Pitying those sorrows, which Thou ne'er can'st fear. 
 " Unsordid penance Thou alone can'st pay: 
 " Unchanged, unchanging, old without decay. 
 " Thou knowest all things : who Thy praise can state ? 
 " Createdst all things, Thyself uncreate :
 
 ( 23 ) 
 
 " The world obeys Thy uncontrolled behest 
 
 " In whatsoever form Thou stand'st confessed. 
 
 " Though Human wisdom many roads can see, 
 
 " That lead to happiness, all verge in Thee: 
 
 " So Ganga's waves from many a distant snow 
 
 " Unite, and to one mighty ocean flow. 
 
 " They, who on Thee have fixed their steadfast mind, 
 
 " And to Thy power themselves, their all, consigned, 
 
 " Free from desire Thou lead'st them to that bourne, 
 
 " Where all must go, whence none can e'er return. 
 
 " Though of Thy might before man's wondering eyes 
 
 " The earth, the universe, in witness rise, 
 
 " Still by no human skill, no mortal mind, 
 
 " Can Thy infinity be e'er defined. 
 
 " As the bright pearls surpass the ocean bed, 
 
 " The sun the light by wandering planets shed, 
 
 " So far Thy real form's celestial ray 
 
 " Exceeds the homage, which weak mortals pay : 
 
 " And, if to bid Thy awful grandeur hail, 
 
 " Our feeble voices in their tribute fail, 
 
 " 'Tis not the number of Thy praises cease, 
 
 " But that our power, alas ! knows no increase." 
 
 (Robert N. Cust : 
 Poems of many years and places, 1842.) 
 
 So in the Egyptian system Amen Ra is more a spiritual con- 
 ception than a material reality. In Homer Zeus is Lord of all. 
 
 More than this : beyond the conception of one great Power 
 was the great Idea of the Avatara, the Immanuel, the Son 
 of God, sent to redeem man in Human form. One of the 
 fiercest apophthegms of the Mahometan is, " Men will tell any 
 lie ; they even say that God can have a son." Yet History tells 
 us, that in the annals of the two greatest Races of mankind, 
 the Grseco-Roman and the Indian, this was an accepted article 
 of Faith long before the great Anno Domini. The Roman 
 Centurion, who had witnessed the awful scene of the Cruci- 
 fixion, belonged no doubt to the Olympian Religion, and bore 
 testimony that He, who had died on the Cross, was the Son 
 of God ; he could think of nothing higher, to which he could 
 compare his dignity, his patience, his God-likeness, than to 
 Hercules, Bacchus, or the Gemini. No ignorant Gentile, as 
 he was, could have had any conception of the Logos, the 
 "Ayia 2o0/«, the Second Person of the Trinity. 
 
 At the eve of the epoch of the great Anno Domini, we find 
 Plorace addressing the Emperor Augustus in the following line : 
 
 " Serus in ccelum redeas."
 
 ( 24 ) 
 
 And Virgil, writing of the same Emperor: 
 
 " Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus." 
 
 Adrian's dying words are worth recording : 
 
 " Ut puto, Deus fio." 
 
 Caligula's instructions to his subjects ran thus : 
 
 " Dominus, et Deus, noster, sic fieri jubet." 
 
 (Suetonius, cap. xiii.) 
 
 In India I have known ignorant men trying to get something 
 out of their English Ruler by gross flattery. I have myself 
 been addressed in the shocking blasphemous way, " Hazur 
 Parameshvar," " your Highness is the great God." 
 
 The words had lost their spiritual force ; the Idea of the 
 name, originally reserved to the Ruler of the Universe, had 
 been degraded : the same fate has happened to the words 
 icvpios, dominus, lord, Herr, in Europe ; the sovereigns of 
 the last two centuries have usurped the title of Majesty, 
 formerly reserved to the Deity. 
 
 D. Polytheism. 
 
 As Monotheism was the elevation of the Idea of the great 
 Power, so Polytheism was the frightful degradation, Those, 
 who have lived in India, know it too well. In this direction 
 Mahometanism, has done good service, and depraved forms of 
 Christianity have done evil service by reintroducing the Worship 
 of other persons except the Triune God, and a Hierarchy of 
 Saints, male and female. It is sad to reflect that, as the 
 Heathen world are gradually passing out of Polytheism, and 
 Mahometanism, and all the other new conceptions keep at the 
 greatest distance from it, the Souls of professedly Christians are 
 filled with material objects of adoration and Worship. 
 
 To make the Idea of the Divine Power intelligible to the 
 ignorant, minor Deities were introduced with limited powers 
 as objects of fear and worship, demi-god's, demiurges, both 
 in the Egyptian, Hellenic, and Hindu systems. Ra appears as 
 the mid-day Sun, Atin-Ra as the Sun's disk, Harmakh as the 
 rising Sun, Turn as the setting Sun. Triads appear in all these 
 conceptions. 
 
 2. Place of Residence of such a Power. 
 
 In the Graeco-Roman legends the Deity dwelt on Mount 
 Olympus ; in the Brahmanical legends on Mount Meru ; in 
 Assyria there was some locality fixed in a mountainous country : 
 in the conception of Buddha and Kong-Fu-Tsee, nothing of
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 the kind exists. The Jews thought of Yahveh as dwelling- 
 above the clouds in Heaven (Lamentations, iii. 50). Stephen's 
 dying words conveyed this conception, and Paul seemed to 
 share it. In the books of the Hebrews the Deity is conceived 
 of as actually residing in the Temple at Jerusalem : Solomon 
 asks the question, II Chronicles, vi, 18, "Will God in very 
 deed dwell with men on the earth ? Behold Heaven, and 
 the Heaven of heavens, cannot contain Thee ; how much less 
 this house which I have built ! " These words, attributed to 
 Solomon, were no doubt recorded after the return from exile, 
 when Monotheism was thoroughly established. This was hardly 
 the case in the time of Solomon, for we read in I Kings, 
 xi, 4, " that his heart was turned after other gods." The 
 prophet Ezekiel had higher conceptions. The hill-tops were 
 favourite places to worship the Deity : some of the most 
 interesting shrines in India, such as Naini Devi, are at the 
 top of high hills, with stone -steps ascending the hill -sides. 
 The discovery of the rotation of the Globe, and of the nature 
 of the interior of the Globe, has revolutionized the Idea: all 
 allusions to geographical position have died away. 
 
 It is difficult to free the Religious mind, prone to superstition, 
 from such notions : Christian Churches are still erected with 
 certain reference to the East : I suppose that this bears reference 
 to Jerusalem, which lies to the East of Europe : but the 
 Orientation of Churches is also maintained in India, which 
 is to the East of Jerusalem. So it is a mere superstition. 
 
 The Mahometans have fallen as low. In the life of Baba 
 Nanak, the founder of the Sikh sect of the Brahmanical Re- 
 ligion, it is recorded, that a Mahometan cried out to him : 
 " Base Infidel, how darest thou turn thy feet towards the House 
 of God ?" alluding to Mekka in Arabia. Nanak replied, "Canst 
 thou turn towards any spot on earth, where the House of God 
 is not ? " 
 
 Paul, the Apostle, echoing at Athens the words used by 
 Stephen at Jerusalem, gave life to the doctrine, which has 
 never been departed from since, that the Lord of Heaven and 
 Earth dwelleth not in Temples made by hands, and he uttered 
 these words, as he stood on Mars' Hill, right in front of the 
 Parthenon, with the gigantic statue of Athene" looking down 
 on him. 
 
 3. Theophanies, Visions, Dreams, Good and Evil Spirits. 
 
 Amidst an ignorant, credulous, excitable, population, without 
 the corrective control of Public Opinion over the narrator, and 
 opportunity to test statements, it was to be expected, that these 
 strange phenomena would be recorded. The readiness to
 
 ( 26 ) 
 
 believe still exists. I have visited the chief great Roman 
 Catholic Shrines to inform myself. The appearance of the 
 Mother of Our Lord at two places in France, is asserted within 
 the last quarter of a century. Under this head comes, Ghosts 
 of the departed, Heavenly Voices, Heavenly Warnings, Heavenly 
 leaders in Battle, Portents, Personal guidance, possession of an 
 individual by an Evil Spirit : in fact, all the channels, by which 
 an outward manifestation of the Deity in persons, or places, 
 permanently or temporarily, is asserted. 
 
 It is an awful subject to tell falsehoods about, whether in 
 Prose or Verse, but the Greek and Latin Authors made light 
 of that moral obliquity. Virgil in the ^Eneid tells us, how the 
 Deity Venus appeared to her reputed son ^Eneas ; Homer tells 
 us, how Ath6n6 appeared repeatedly to Ulysses ; Ovid tells us, 
 how Jupiter appeared with Mercury to an old couple; and Livy, 
 how in the hour of battle, Castor and Pollux appeared fighting 
 for Rome. The conception of Angels, embodied attributes of 
 God or Heavenly Messengers, developed itself, and naturally the 
 conception of Evil Spirits followed, and the germ of both 
 conceptions can clearly be traced back to Zoroaster. The word 
 Satan or Shaitan, the ordinary word for the Devil to this day in 
 Persian and cognate Languages, only appears four times in the 
 Old Testament: (i) opposing the purification of Joshua, the High- 
 Priest, in the Prophecy of Zechariah ; (2) once in the Drama of 
 Job; (3) once in the Chronicles, as tempting David to take a 
 census of his Subjects ; (4) once in the Psalms : the word 
 Baalzebub never appears in the Old Testament. In the New 
 Testament their appearances are more frequent, and in the 
 Roman Catholic legends, nothing is so common as the 
 appearance of an angel, and even of Satan himself. 
 
 We read the following in The Times of 1893 : 
 
 "As soon as a sufficient force could be collected, the Kongo 
 " Free-State despatched an Expedition against the Arabs in 
 " the Upper Kongo Region. The first battle was fought on 
 " the Lohmami, and resulted in the rout of the Arabs, who 
 " explained their defeat as due to supernatural agency, alleging 
 " that in the thick of the fight a white woman was seen walking 
 " on the river, and that every man of the Arab forces, who 
 " looked upon her, fell dead." 
 
 Pass on to Visions by day, or to Dreams by night. Socrates 
 is recorded to have seen in a dream a cygnet flying to him, and 
 singing sweetly ; next morning Plato was brought to him, and 
 he considered the dream fulfilled. In Virgil's great Poem 
 dreams are freely used. In the Old and New Testament we 
 find the same phenomena: when Joseph told his dream, his 
 brothers spoke of this dreamer in scorn ; many hundred 
 years later another Joseph considered, that he was warned of
 
 ( 27 ) 
 
 God in a dream ; and yet in this age, if anyone talked of 
 regulating his conduct in consequence of a vision or a dream, 
 he would be laughed at. The conception of personal spiritual 
 communion with the Deity, and a sense of being guided by the 
 Holy Spirit, have taken the place of material appearances. The 
 fond and foolish conception of the appearance of Ghosts still 
 holds its own with weak people. 
 Homer writes : 
 
 Kat 'yap r ovap e/c Z\«o? effTiu. 
 
 (Iliad, I, 63.) 
 
 Again, we find "Dream" actually personified as a god. Jupiter 
 thus addresses him : 
 
 fiaaK l'9i, ov\e Oveipc, 6oa<s eiri v?ja^ 'A^anuu 
 e\0il}i> es kXicdju Ayapepvovos 'A-rpeiSao. 
 
 (Iliad, II, 8-15.) 
 
 In the Odyssey we read further of the two gates through 
 which dreams pass: Virgil repeats it (iEneid, VI. 893): 
 
 Boiai 'yap tg ttvKcii afievvivwv eiaiv oveipwv 
 at fiev yap tcepaeaai rereu^arai, aid i'\e(j)avTi. 
 
 Those, that pass through the ivory gate, are false and deceive. 
 Those, that pass through the horn gate are true. 
 
 (XIX, 560, 568.) 
 
 In one Inscription of Nabonidus, King of Babylonia, it is 
 mentioned, that he was summoned in a dream by Merodach to 
 restore a ruined shrine. (Sayce's Monuments, p. 187.) 
 
 It is astounding to find a survival of dreams in a most 
 unexpected quarter : 
 
 " That very morning he had received from Sherman the news 
 ' of Johnston's impending surrender. Grant, as it happened, 
 ' had just arrived in Washington, expressing great anxiety as 
 ' to intelligence from Sherman. The President answered 
 ' him in that singular vein of poetic mysticism, which, 
 ' though constantly held in check by his strong common- 
 ' sense, formed a remarkable element in his character. He 
 ' assured Grant, that the news would come soon and come 
 ' favourably, for he had last night had his usual dream, which 
 ' preceded great events. The dream, like the heathen oracles, 
 ' received a double and unexpected interpretation. Meantime, 
 ' there was a Cabinet-meeting, where the treatment of the 
 ' vanquished rebels was discussed. Lincoln spoke peremptorily 
 ' in favour of clemency. No one need expect that he would take 
 ' any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of
 
 ( 28 ) 
 
 " them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, 
 " let down the bars, scare them off, he said, throwing up his 
 " hands, as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. 
 " We must extinguish our resentments, if we expect harmony 
 " and union. That evening he was murdered. Superstition was 
 " blended with his strong common-sense; he had faith in dreams 
 " and omens, and was so far a fatalist, that he sincerely believed 
 " in his destiny. If he were the predestined instrument, he 
 " would be privileged to complete the work." 
 
 With regard to Spirits, a competent authority (Tiele, p. 9) 
 remarks, that Animism is a primitive philosophy, which 
 rules the whole life of natural man : it is the belief in the 
 existence of Spirits, some of whom are powerful, and on some 
 man is dependent, and of some he is afraid, and hence they 
 acquired the rank of Divine beings, and became objects of 
 Worship. These Spirits are conceived to move through space, 
 either of their own accord, or under some spell, which implies 
 compulsion. They appear to men : this is Spiritism ; or take up 
 their abode in some object, living or lifeless, and this object is 
 endowed with certain powers, and is an object of Worship, or 
 employed to protect individuals, or communities : this is 
 Fetichism. Sacrifices are offered to the Spirits of the dead, even 
 Human Sacrifices. 
 
 It is proved, as an anthropological fact, in all parts of the 
 world, that men in their primeval state believed, that man had 
 a Soul, which continued to exist after death for a longer or 
 shorter time, and could return to the earth and influence for 
 good or evil the affairs of the living: this conception lies at the 
 root of Ancestor-Worship. 
 
 Angelology was one of the Hebrew conceptions of a late 
 date, and certainly sprang from contact with Zoroastrianism 
 during the Babylonian exile. It is reasonable to suppose, that 
 all such conceptions, which became the common property of the 
 Zoroastrian and Jewish Religions, are survivals of the common 
 Belief-store, or Legend-germ, of Mankind : the more ignorant, 
 degraded, and politically dependent that a population becomes, 
 the more readily it accepts lies, innocent lies, yet dangerous 
 perversions of a central Truth. At the time of Christ the 
 Sadducees had their eyes more open than their ritualistic 
 neighbours the Pharisees : the populace was always ready to be 
 deceived, and was deceived ; it swallowed open-mouthed any 
 marvel. Thus grew the legend of Angels : the Book of Tobit 
 is a mere Hebrew Haggadah, or pious fairy story : the idea of 
 men being possessed with devils was a purely Palestinian 
 conception : no contemporary Latin or Greek Historian notices 
 such possessions. European Christianity never accepted such 
 a condition of mankind in Europe : no miracle was ever
 
 ( 29 ) 
 
 performed by the Apostles in Europe : the disease of devil- 
 possession is not alluded to in the Gospel of St. John, written 
 at Ephesus after the fall of Jerusalem. No Religious movement 
 ever gets a permanent start without follies and excesses : we 
 see it in the Salvation-Army of modern time : it is quite 
 possible, that even in the cold, cynical, incredulous, atmosphere 
 of London we shall have a crop of Visions and Evil Spirits : 
 the soil is being well manured for such a crop : all sensational 
 forms of Religion are liable to such weaknesses. 
 
 In Mahometan times the world had advanced beyond the 
 intellectual level of the first century a.d. : Angels could only 
 make a spiritual appearance. A Sufi called out to God, " The 
 desire of God has seized me : I yearn to see Thee." The 
 answer came directly to his heart, " Be content with My 
 name." So long as this is the channel of communication, we 
 may rejoice, that the Holy Spirit holds converse with men. It 
 is possible, that in the Old Testament this was meant, when it 
 is so constantly stated that " God said," " God spake," and 
 it is to be regretted, that it was not so expressed. (Max Midler: 
 Gifford Lectures, 1893, p. 340.) 
 
 As a remarkable instance of Heavenly Voices, I may 
 mention the Emperor Adrian's written Memorandum on the 
 Statue of Memnon at Luxor : " Ego Hadrianus divinam 
 vocem audivi." He indeed heard the sound of the wind 
 through the stones : since the Statue has been repaired the 
 sound has disappeared. The people of Lycaonia are recorded 
 in the Acts, xiv, 11 to have at once imagined, that Paul and 
 Barnabas were Jupiter and Mercury in disguise, and the 
 inevitable Sacrifice of animals commenced. 
 
 In Isaiah, viii, 19, we read: "And when they shall say unto 
 " you, Seek unto them, that have familiar Spirits, and unto 
 " wizards that peep and that mutter, should not a people seek 
 " unto their God." 
 
 In Luke, xiii, 16 : "The woman, whom Satan hath bound these 
 eighteen years (with a spirit of infirmity)." 
 
 In the Synoptic Gospels we read of possession by evil Spirits. 
 The conception can be traced back to Hesiod of Heavenly 
 Spiritual Beings, who fill the unseen world, and can influence 
 the lot of men. The same strain of thought appears in Thales, 
 who defines Demons as Spiritual existences. Pythagoras was 
 of opinion, that these Spirits could be seen or felt. Heraclitus 
 held that all things were full of Spirits, and Empedocles 
 describes the wanderings through the Universe of a lost Soul : 
 this calls to recollection the Chinese conception on this 
 subject. Plato asserts, that some can read the minds of living 
 men, are grieved by wrong-doing, appear to men in their sleep, 
 are made known by voices and oracles, in health, sickness, and
 
 ( 30 ) 
 
 the dying hour. After the great oracles were silent, and the 
 Philosophic Schools had discredited the previously accepted 
 Cosmogony, still the idea of Spirits seems to have revived. 
 Plutarch, a.d. ioo, seems to admit their existence, and to assert, 
 that they give oracles : it is a feature in the neo-Platonic 
 system. In Acts, xvi, 16, we read of a damsel possessed of a 
 spirit of Divination, who was a source of profit to her masters, 
 and the Spirit, at the command of Paul, came out of her. This 
 kind of occupation could have no relation to the cases alluded 
 to in the Synoptic Gospels, as they were obviously cases of 
 epilepsy, hysteria, or the hypnotism of that age. 
 
 4. Primeval Revelation : was there any ? 
 
 With regard to the Religious instinct congenital to Man, the 
 theory of the existence of a Primitive Revelation, or a Primeval 
 Tradition, has gained ground with many thinkers : it is absolutely 
 unsupported by evidence, and generates new questions of 
 insoluble difficulty. One author writes as follows : 
 
 " Throughout all the Heathen World there lie scattered the 
 " seeds of a Primeval Tradition, sometimes nearlv obliterated 
 " by Fable, overlaid by Mythology, or absorbed by Philosophy, 
 " but still supplying elements of Truth. The germs of the 
 " Gospel existed, as they were communicated to men. Appeal 
 " should be made in reasoning to Primeval Truth ; an appeal 
 " to common principles of belief will conduce to the acknow- 
 " ledgment of a Truth," but not as if it were a conception, 
 which came into existence in Syria in Anno Domini, instead 
 of being part of the great scheme of Creation. (Indian 
 Missionary Manual, 1870, 2nd edition, p. 195.) 
 
 I freely admit that a Religious instinct was a part, and an in- 
 dispensable part, of the Genus Homo, but it seems clear that, just 
 as there was no one common seedplot of Languages, but distinct 
 seedplots, so the Human Race, differentiated by white, black, 
 yellow, red, and brown colours, and by bodily features of the 
 most marked kind, did not proceed from a common pair, as was 
 believed in the earlier centuries after Anno Domini. Before that 
 date there is no evidence of any belief at all on the subject ; at 
 any rate, the Hebrew Race would never have admitted, that all 
 mankind came from a common ancestor. 
 
 The writer of the above extract does not state the quarter, 
 from which he derived the theory, that throughout the Heathen 
 World the seed was scattered : of the tribes of Africa, Oceania, 
 and North America, we have nothing but the vaguest tradition. 
 The Book-Religions, and excavated Monuments, of the great 
 Races of Asia, and Egypt, do not supply evidence ; at any
 
 ( 31 ) 
 
 rate, I have failed to find it. It is a tremendous assumption to 
 make, and implies, that there has been a continuous degradation 
 of a Divine conception, instead of a gradual increase, and 
 expansion, and elevation, and evolution, from century to century, 
 which is my deliberate opinion. The existence of the Sacred 
 Books of the East seems to indicate this, and the long procession 
 of Law-givers, Philosophers, and Sages, always adding to the 
 Store of Divine knowledge, Virtue, and 'H a<yla 2o0/«, icai '11 apinj, 
 ended in the appearance of Christ in the Fulness of Time. 
 The fact seems to be, that the Great Father imparted to all 
 His poor children a Religious instinct, and a Religious faculty 
 capable of development according to their physical environment, 
 and metaphysical opportunities. 
 
 5. Substitution of Idols made by Men's Hands for an 
 
 Impersonal Divinity. 
 
 This process insensibly takes place in an ignorant Com- 
 munity : they require something visible, tangible, realizable to 
 the perception, and naturally the Idols assumed Human form, 
 and, as Art advanced, the most beautiful Human forms, that 
 could be conceived ; but there is no reason to suppose, that the 
 physical embodiment, which the Deity is supposed to have 
 assumed for the convenience of his worshipper, should be 
 a copy of his form : the el'civXou was not necessarily a 
 simulacrum : originally a cairn, a rude stone pillar, a conical 
 stone, a phallus, were the symbols, under which the Divinity 
 was to be worshipped. The following sentiment is attributed 
 to Apollonius of Tyana in the first century after Anno Domini : 
 " The mind finds for itself something, which it delineates 
 better than what any Art can do." We must all feel this : to 
 the cultured mind the contemplation of a Statue or picture 
 deplorably limits the conception, which had been previously 
 formed, or which could be supplied by words. 
 
 At any rate, by the time of the Anno Domini the epoch of 
 Worship of the Works of the hand of man had pretty well 
 come to its end : such lines as those of Horace, 
 
 " Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum" 
 
 (Sat. I, viii, 1), 
 speak for themselves. 
 
 These words appear in the Wisdom of Solomon, by an 
 unknown Alexandrian Jew, probably a contemporary of 
 Horace: "No man can make a god like unto himself: for he 
 himself is better than the things, which he worships: for he
 
 ( 32 ) 
 
 lived once, but they never." The very latest Book of the 
 Christian Canon gives, however, instance of the taste for 
 animal symbolism, in the Lion, the Lamb, the Bull ; and the 
 allegory of the four Evangelists in the Eagle, the Angel, the 
 Lion, and the Bull. No doubt there is some point in the retort 
 of the Brahmin to the Christian Missionary, " You blame me 
 for worshipping a Bull : why do you worship a Lamb ? Are 
 not both animals symbols ? " 
 
 It is not necessarily a Worship of Idols. The Roman Catholic, 
 as far as regards externals, acts in precisely the same way to 
 his saints: he kisses the brass toe of St. Peter; he bows, 
 and prays to, and presents offerings to, images of men, and 
 women of ancient days: I carefully exclude all representa- 
 tions of the Persons of the Triune God. The Hindu distinctly 
 denies, that he worships the stone object, but the Religious 
 conception of which that object is the outward expression. Let 
 us take the humble example of a female child with her doll : 
 endowed with feelings, which hereafter may develop into 
 motherhood, she looks on the doll as her companion, her great 
 care, and object of her tenderest affection : she knows, that it is 
 only wood and linen, and she knows that the bystanders know 
 this also, yet she feels for it, if it falls to the ground, or is 
 ill-used : she is voluntarily deceived : the day comes suddenly, 
 when the cloud is lifted up from her eyes, and with no sense 
 of shame she puts it away in her cabinet. It has no longer a 
 charm for her, but she is tolerant, if her younger sisters find 
 in it the same pleasure, which she did. 
 
 So with the barbarian : he is man in his childhood : he accepts 
 the Idea, more than the fact, that the Anthropomorphic object is 
 the Deity : if necessary, he will call in the artificer to repair it 
 or paint it, but he has invested it in his mind with his very best 
 gifts : its eyes look on his wants ; its ears listen to his prayers ; 
 its nose smells his sacrifice; its touch heals his ailments: his 
 simple untrained intellect cannot conceive of a Deity, which 
 fills all space, governs the world, and yet is neither visible, nor 
 tangible : he claims no such power for his Deity, who belongs 
 to his tribe alone. 
 
 Then comes the question of Polytheism, or many Deities with 
 equal power ; or Monism, where there is one Deity, who is the 
 Chief God among many gods ; or Monolatrism, where each 
 tribe has one god, will worship no other, still admits that other 
 tribes have their own god ; and lastly Monotheism, where there 
 is one only God, Lord of the Universe : the Jews did not arrive 
 at this last stage till the time of Isaiah. Yahveh was only the 
 God of Israel to them : this was Monolatry : the Polytheistic 
 Greeks admitted, that there was a power greater than that of 
 Zeus, the overruling Fates : here we touch ground with Monism.
 
 ( 33 ) 
 6. Fatherhood of God. 
 
 Wherever the traveller penetrates, he finds out by what name 
 the local Deity is known, whether he is a person, or impersonal, 
 what Idea is conveyed with the name, whether he is merely a 
 tribal Deity, or God of the whole world, whether the existence 
 of other gods is admitted as a fact. Man everywhere, and in 
 every age, requires, that there should be personal relations 
 betwixt him and his Deity : where otherwise would he find 
 a solution of the perplexities of existence ? The Idea of a 
 Deity possesses him by intuition, or observation : it gradually 
 develops : it does not require Science, or Philosophy, to find out 
 the Deity: He is there, in the elements, or in the environment. 
 
 The difference betwixt the primeval, and later, conception 
 of the relation of Man to the Deity is five-fold, and necessarily 
 affects the Anthropomorphic Idea : 
 
 (i) The Deity is perfectly good: there is no envy of man 
 in Him: His relation is that of a Father to all His 
 poor children on Earth. 
 
 (2) Each individual has a personal relation with the Deity. 
 
 (3) An Idea of what is actually good and bad is formed, 
 
 and outward prosperity is no longer the chief good, 
 and outward adversity the chief evil. 
 
 (4) There is a consciousness of social progress to higher 
 
 levels of goodness and wisdom. 
 
 (5) The conception of a future life becomes paramount: 
 
 the inequalities of Human life will there be set 
 right, and there will be a compensation for individual 
 suffering'. 
 
 '&• 
 
 Carlyle, in his " Hero-Worship," remarks that Idol is elSwXov, 
 a thing seen, a symbol : it is not a god, but a symbol : one may 
 question, whether even one of the most benighted mortals took 
 it for more than a symbol ; whether he ever thought that the 
 poor Image, which his own hand had made, was a god, but 
 that a god was emblemed by it, that a god was in it in some way 
 or other. But in process of time, as the Worship grew to 
 be ancestral, some portion of the community began to believe, 
 that there was something special in the Image. Take, for 
 instance, the Madonna of the Pilar in Spain ; the Virgin of 
 Loretto in Italy ; the figure of Jagarnath ; the Lingam in India ; 
 the Kaaba-Stone in Arabia ; the tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem. 
 We know what happened to the Brazen Serpent : it was 
 destroyed, because it was worshipped : then real Idolatry 
 begins. The bitter attacks of Isaiah, and of Protestant Churches, 
 come into existence then : no one supposes, that the Roman
 
 ( 34 ) 
 
 Catholic worships the Crucifix, which happens to be on the 
 Altar: that is only a symbol: but, when he has walked a 
 thousand miles to kiss the great toe of St. Peter, he does 
 worship: the enlightened Priest, whether Greek, Hindu, or 
 Roman, may think, that it is only a symbol ; the ignorant 
 multitude think otherwise. 
 
 7. Threats of Worshippers uttered against their Gods. 
 
 It is a strange degradation of the Idea, when the ignorant 
 worshipper threatens his god, if he does not do what he, 
 the worshipper, wants : the attempt to bribe him is common 
 enough by an additional Sacrifice : we read in Virgil's -^Eneid : 
 
 " Multa tibi ante aram nostra cadet hostia dextra," 
 
 or Horace's promise to his fountain of Bandusia: 
 
 " Cras donaberis hsedo." 
 
 Clearly Horace and Virgil were getting in their notions beyond 
 the epoch of Sacrifice.
 
 60 
 
 CAP. II. WORSHIP OF SUCH A POWER. 
 
 i. What is it ? 
 
 2. Primeval. 
 
 3. Ancestral. 
 
 4. Sacrifice. 
 
 5. Prayer. 
 
 6. Ritual. 
 
 7. Priestcraft, Witchcraft, Exorcism. 
 
 8. Ceremonial Cleanness, or Uncleanness. 
 
 9. Fasting, Celibacy, Asceticism, Eremitism. 
 
 10. Feasting, Days of Rest. 
 
 11. Esoteric, or Exoteric. 
 
 1. What is it ? 
 
 All Nations have some form of Worship : what is Worship ? 
 Survey mankind from China to Peru, and go back to the 
 remotest ages, and you will not find a people, however low in 
 culture, however restricted in local environment, who have not 
 had a dim conception of a Power greater than themselves, to 
 the behests of which they are compelled to bow, which they 
 try to conciliate in their own rough way. The civilized 
 Nations, who swayed the world before the great Anno Domini, 
 present marked instances. The Amen Ra of the Egyptian 
 Monarch, the Ashur of the Assyrian, the Jupiter Optimus 
 Maximus of the Roman, the Divine Power of the Zulu, the 
 great Father and Spirit of the Red Indian, the Quetyalcoatl 
 of the Mexican, were the genuine outcomes of the great motive 
 of Religious Worship : 
 
 " Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor." 
 
 The mode of Worship varies, being limited by the abundance, 
 and variety, of resources. But the gigantic figures carved on 
 the rocks in the solitary Easter Island in Oceania are as 
 impressive to the spectator, and as suggestive of real Worship, 
 as the stately Monuments at Abu Simbul, the solitary Memnon 
 at Karnak, and the winged bulls at Nineveh.
 
 ( 36 ) 
 
 With the majority of mankind, Worship of some kind makes 
 up the sum total of Religion : can this be so ? What is 
 Religion, of what is it composed ? 
 
 Is it a desire to save the Soul by Worship and dogma ? 
 Or a devotion to goodness, which is practical ? 
 
 It would fill a volume to descant further on forms of 
 Worship : they vary beyond conception : considered of the 
 highest importance by one Nation, and laughed at as folly by 
 their neighbours. 
 
 A writer thus expresses himself: "The History of Religion 
 " is very curious : looked at dispassionately it has done very 
 " little for mankind in general, save to prove one fundamental 
 " Truth, which is more significant than any dogma : that Truth 
 " is the need of all humanity to have something to worship : 
 " from the highest to the lowest civilization that need has 
 " made itself the exponent of external forms : it is the kernel 
 " of all Religions." (" Mystery of Turkish Bath," p. r r.) 
 
 I give a quotation from the Agni Purana, one of the Sanskrit 
 Sacred Books of the Hindu : " That is the best Worship, 
 " which is made without the expectation of the attainment of 
 " any particular object ; the worst is that, which is performed 
 " for the accomplishment of a particular end." 
 
 The Worship may be spiritual, but it generally is carnal, and 
 the tendency is year by year to become more so. Its object is 
 presumed : 
 
 (i) To please the Deity, Demi-god, or Saint. 
 
 (2) To conciliate his, or her, favour. 
 
 (3) To remove his, or her, anger. 
 
 (4) To render thanks for past mercies attributed fondly to 
 
 him, or her. 
 
 (5) To pray for future blessings. 
 
 (6) To persuade the Deity to destroy the enemies of the 
 
 worshipper. 
 
 I designedly omit the details of Christian Worship of all 
 kinds, except when illustrating phenomena of non-Christian 
 Worship, and I take my examples from Pagan Greece and 
 Rome in the past, the contemporary Worship of the Brahman, 
 the Buddhist, the Jew, and the Barbarian of Africa, North and 
 South America, and Oceania. I am tolerably familiar with 
 them all. 
 
 Old Homer tells us how offering's were made to Athene : 
 
 '6' 
 
 iv wyaK/iia 6ea Ke^apono icovaa. 
 
 {Odyssey, III, 438.)
 
 ( 37 ) 
 
 Cardinal Lavigerie has unconsciously, but happily, interpreted 
 the sentiment in his Inscription to the Mother of Christ in her 
 reputed home at Jerusalem, which the Pope has selected for 
 her: " When the Virgin looks down from Heaven to the place 
 " of her birth, her eyes will fall on the names of those, 
 " who have subscribed so many francs to the repair of the 
 " building." 
 
 Abraham was ready to offer up Isaac ; Agamemnon actually 
 offered his daughter Iphigenia, though Artemis interfered to 
 save her ; Jephthah sacrificed his daughter ; children were 
 passed through the fire to Molech in the city of Jerusalem just 
 before the Exile, Jeremiah, xxxii, 35. 
 
 Asking for blessings, and returning thanks for them, trying to 
 conciliate the Deity, if things go bad with the worshipper, calling 
 for vengeance and slaughter of enemies, loading the altars with 
 the flesh of plundered cattle, ornamenting the temple with the 
 precious metals ravished from plundered houses, hanging up 
 the trophies of war, and Standards of Regiments, in the place 
 of Worship ; going after new Deities, if the old one seemed slow 
 to discharge his duties, and send seasonable rain, abundant 
 harvests, and long periods of rest from war and invasion : 
 such were the features pourtrayed in the Books of Kings and 
 Chronicles of the Hebrew people, and are a fair sample of the 
 rest of the world in the ages preceding the great Anno Domini. 
 
 But the mockery of Worship in the Nineteenth Century a.d. 
 is still more marked : on every public occasion in every country 
 of Europe a function is performed : Protestants, members of the 
 Greek Church, of the Church of Rome, Mahometans, Turks, 
 Atheists, Agnostics, and those, who care nothing for Religion, 
 assemble to listen to Music and Anthems, and intoned prayers, a 
 tribute to some departed Statesman, or to celebrate a Christening, 
 a Confirmation, a Marriage, a Funeral, of some member of the 
 Royal Family. What an awful burlesque on the true faith of 
 Christ is such purely formal Christianity ! we laugh at the 
 Buddhist, and Chinese, but is this not much worse ? The silver 
 jubilee of the King of Siam's reign was celebrated by a series of 
 Religious services and State processions, in which the King took 
 part. Great satisfaction was felt among the people, because the 
 Diplomatic Corps was fully represented at an audience. It is 
 presumed, that the sentiment of Religion exalts or degrades 
 itself according to the comparative ignorance, or advancement 
 in general culture, of the professors of that Religion ; and 
 unquestionably Religion, like all other movements of thought 
 and belief, is subject to the Laws of Development : it cannot 
 remain stationary without certainty of decay. 
 
 A craving for a spiritual unity with the Deity has inspired 
 many Christians, and non-Christians, but this craving has never
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 been so fully developed as in the Philosophic Schools of ancient 
 India. So also in all external form of Worship, they showed 
 the way. 
 
 The Roman Classical Authors admitted, that Greece, con- 
 quered in arms, ruled in intellect ; so also Paganism, though 
 conquered, clings to the skirts of, and defiles, Christian Worship. 
 Archbishop Whateley boldly says, that the Roman Catholic 
 system of Saints, Shrines, Processions, Priestcraft, is but a modern 
 Paganism, and, if we look closer, we find that Church-Architec- 
 ture, Church-vestments, Church-terminology, such as templum, 
 sacerdos, hostia, altare, are Pagan : the initiated into the Greek 
 mysteries were required to fast (Hibbert Lectures, 1888, p. 298 : 
 Hatch) before they drank the mystic liquor, or ate the mystic 
 cake : Paganism, instead of being uprooted, was absorbed into 
 the life of the Italian Church. 
 
 When you enter a Roman Catholic Church on the Continent, 
 it seems, as if you passed into a different Epoch intellectually ; 
 old buildings, old altars, old tombs, Mass, music, worshippers : 
 is it real ? The pictures on the walls tell of the life of Jesus, but 
 does this exhibition represent the Spirit of the Master ? Does 
 the majority of the worshippers understand what they are doing ? 
 What is the essential difference betwixt their cultus and that 
 of Pagan Rome ? How do the Priests of one cult differ from 
 those of the other ? When you meet them in the Sacristy, is 
 it not obvious, that the whole thing is "opus operatum," and 
 that no possible good can have accrued to the Soul of Priest, 
 or People. Does not Westminster Abbey reflect some of these 
 features ? the chant of the singing men and boys, unconverted 
 men and boys, giving out in high and low musical notes, with- 
 out any sign of feeling, the great mysteries of the Incarnation, 
 Resurrection, and Procession of the Holy Ghost, in the Creed. 
 Each paragraph of that Creed is the outcome of deadly strife, 
 and the certainty of it cannot be asserted with mathematical 
 accuracy, and it is only understood by study and prayer; yet it 
 slips off the tongue of a lad, whose only qualification is the 
 possession of the gift of sweet sounds, and who possibly may 
 have been singing for hire at a Cider-Cellar the previous 
 evening. 
 
 St. George Mivart, in the " Nineteenth Century," Dec, 1892, 
 p. 913, writes: "In a certain time the Paganism of Greece, 
 " and Rome, was true as well as righteous, and Zeus and Athene, 
 " Ares and Aphrodite, were expressions of the Divine : the Pagan 
 " rites and ceremonies were in a measure good, and the Pagan 
 " Worship an acceptable service." This gives a measure of 
 Worship. 
 
 A Missionary in South Africa writes : " We see that many acts 
 " which, according to Western ideas, are far removed from the
 
 ( 39 ) 
 
 " region of devotion and Worship, are in reality parts of a life, 
 " every act, word, and movement of which has a significance 
 " in a Religious sense. I have seen natives of Africa perform 
 " acts of devotion before the eyes of men, who declared that 
 " they had no idea of Worship nor of gods. When a native 
 " glances at the sun or moon, he prays ; when he drops a small 
 " particle of food on the ground before he begins to eat, he 
 " offers an oblation ; if he throws a tuft of grass, a bit of stick, 
 " or a stone out of his hut door in the morning before emerging 
 " himself, he has said matins." These remarks throw light 
 upon the very important question, whether all men possess what 
 we may call the Religious sense. I have always believed that 
 we have the best ethnological authority for saying, that no 
 savage tribe has ever been found wholly devoid of this Religious 
 sense. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman, in a discourse on University-Education in 
 1852, p. 96, writes: "God's writing is on the wall, whether of 
 " the Indian fane, or the portico of Greece : He is with the 
 " Greek Dramatist in his denunciation of tyranny and injustice, 
 " and his auguries of Divine vengeance on crime. Even in the 
 " legends of popular Mythology He casts His shadow, and it is 
 " dimly discerned in the ode, in the epic, as in troubled waters, 
 " or fantastic dreams." 
 
 It must not be supposed that, because two doctrines, and two 
 practices, resemble each other in Nations, which never at any 
 period came into contact, they must have been derived one from 
 the other. Of course, a partisan of one will assert, that the other 
 party derived from him. The Romish Fathers, Hue and Gabet, 
 fondly thought, that the Buddhists of Tibet had borrowed much 
 of their ritual from the Church of Rome. The real truth is, 
 that the germs of Dogma and Practice were part of the original 
 outfit of the Human Race. The same power of reasoning, 
 which they all equally possessed, flowed in the same channel, 
 and under similar circumstances worked out the same phenomena. 
 We see this with our eyes in the monuments of Egypt and 
 Mesopotamia : an act of adoration to a Deity is being made : 
 call it, if you like, foolish, mistaken, Worship, yet it is the 
 outcome of a specific faith. Rabshakeh boasted to the people 
 of Jerusalem of what his King, and his King's god, had done : 
 it was no reply that the God of the Hebrews is supposed to have 
 made : it was clear that the same Ruler of the world was 
 worshipped by both, who influenced the Kings of all the round 
 world to do His will : all mankind were equally His poor 
 creatures, the objects of His Pity and Love, then, before Anno 
 Domini, as it is admitted, that they were after that date, and 
 the illusion of the chosen people had cleared away. 
 
 It must surprise, and even seem repulsive to, a Native of
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
 China and India, when he first reads the Old Testament. A 
 thoughtful Brahmin would say : " It is all very well for you 
 " English, who were savages at the time of Anno Domini, 
 " Sacrificers of Human beings, grossly ignorant, with no Re- 
 " ligion, or Ritual, or Dogma, or Sacred Books, to welcome 
 " the Missionary from Jerusalem with the good news ; but we 
 " Indians had had all these things for centuries : we worshipped 
 " the Param6svara, the Great Deity, to the best of our ability; 
 " we built magnificent temples, wrote learned treatises, and 
 " elaborated costly rituals; we did what we could, with a free 
 " heart, feeling after God, if haply we could find Him ; we did 
 " it in our magnificent cities, amidst wealth, rank, power, and 
 " numbers ; and yet this miserable tribe of the Hebrews, who 
 " occupied a country about the size of two out of our hundred 
 " districts, and have left no memorial of Architecture, of In- 
 " scriptions, or Statuary, no literature, but one collection of 
 " sacred books, the largest part of which were put to paper at 
 " a date subsequent to Zoroaster, Buddha, and Kong-Fu-Tsee, 
 " talk about the Deity being their's only instead of being the 
 " common Father of all mankind, and calling our ancestors 
 " by insulting names, who had never even heard of the exist- 
 " ence of this petty tribe, which has long ceased to exist as a 
 " Nation, while we are still a Nation of two hundred Millions." 
 
 2. Primeval. 
 
 This branch of the subject has been very carefully studied in 
 important volumes. There has been a certain order, according 
 to which man has graduated, as it were, in his Worship : (A) the 
 Tree ; (B) the Phallus, or Lingam ; (C) the Serpent ; (D) the Fire ; 
 (E) the Sun and the Heavenly Host; (F) Animals; (G)Totemism; 
 (H) Fetichism ; (I) Hero-Worship. It is unnecessary to enter at 
 large on these Subjects : the point before us is, that some of 
 these forms are ubiquitous. In every country the narratives 
 of travellers report grottos, stones, pillars, cairns, impressions of 
 footmarks. The tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil appears 
 in the Earliest Hebrew legends. The Phallus is believed to be 
 the root-conception of the Obelisk: in India it is manifest, but 
 there is no obscene motive: the multiplication of the animal 
 from generation to generation is in itself a marvel, and this is 
 the symbol of reproduction. The Serpent again appears in the 
 Earliest Hebrew legends. When we come to Fire, in all its 
 manifold appearances, we find a real object of Worship, a maker 
 and preserver, and destroyer, a great blessing and a great curse, 
 a good servant and a bad master, which comes into existence 
 we know not how, and which disappears we know not whither,
 
 ( 41 ) 
 
 which destroys vast forests, and is itself quenched by water, 
 which is the instrument of Sacrifice everywhere, which some- 
 times appears to fall from Heaven in the stroke of lightning, 
 and sometimes appears from the hard rock as the Naphtha- 
 spring. I was standing at the famous Naphtha-springs of Jowala 
 Mukhi, in North India, when a Hindu, who had travelled many 
 hundred leagues, arrived, and bowed before it, and turning to 
 me said, in accents of deep devotion, "This indeed is God." 
 He had felt after this, and had found Him, "Agni," the Fire, 
 "a symbol of the Comforter and Destroyer." 
 
 The Worship of the Moon, and the Heavenly Host, in a clear 
 Eastern night is excusable. The glory of the rising and setting 
 Sun cannot be exceeded. In the beautiful Graeco- Roman 
 conceptions, Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis Diana, represented 
 the Sun and the Moon. The god of the Moabite was named 
 Chemosh, or Shumsh, the Sun ; and Sampson means, " like the 
 Sun." Astrology was an early weakness of the Human Race. 
 To this very day, the days of the weeks are named after the 
 Sun, the Moon, and the' five Planets, Mercury, Mars, Venus, 
 Jupiter, and Saturn, or Deities analogous to them. 
 
 The Gayatri of the Brahman is impressive : " Let us adore 
 " the Supremacy of the Divine Sun, the Deity, who illuminates 
 " all, from whom all proceed, and are renovated, and to whom 
 " all must return ; whom we invoke to direct our intellect aright 
 " in our progress towards His Holy Seat" (Sacred Anthology, 
 p. 103). The great God of the Egyptians was Ra, the Sun. 
 
 Tree and Serpent-Worship have been the special Study of 
 a very competent Scholar, the late James Fergusson, and his 
 magnificent book tells its own story. Sayce, in his Higher 
 Criticism and the Monuments, 1893, writes as follows (p. 182) : 
 
 " All over Syria rags are hung up as offerings, nominally to 
 " the Shaikh, after whom some tomb is named, but really to 
 " the Spirit of the Tree, to whom Worship had been paid before 
 " the days of Islam. Tree-Worship is of immense antiquity in 
 " Semitic lands, but the Tree must be solitary and alone before 
 " it could be deemed holy: the Tree, which stood in the midst 
 " of the Babylonian Garden of Eden, and under whose shadowy 
 " branches was the shrine of Tammuz, may have been a re- 
 " flection of the Sacred Tree. In Genesis we read of the 
 " Serpent and the Apple-Tree. Throughout India the traveller 
 " comes across votive rags fastened on the branches of particular 
 " trees." 
 
 We read in Dent, iv, 19: "The Sun, and the Moon, and 
 " Stars, even all the Host of Heaven .... which the Lord 
 " thy God hath divided [apportioned] unto all Nations under 
 " the whole Heaven." 
 
 In the time of Justin Martyr it was believed by some, that God
 
 ( 42 ) 
 
 had allowed the Heathen to worship the heavenly bodies. 
 (Speaker's Commentary.) Bishop Westcott quotes the passage 
 with the following remark : " In two passages of Deuteronomy, 
 " even false Religions are presented as part of the Divine 
 " ordering of Humanity : even their Idolatries had a work to 
 " do for Him, an office in the discipline of men." (Westcott: 
 Gospel of Life, p. 114.) 
 
 We cannot doubt, that in those early days of man's History, 
 when the artificial world, the creation of men's hands, Cities, 
 Temples, etc., did not exist, the Kosmos, made by the hand 
 of God, the starry Heavens, the vast Rivers peopled by fish, 
 the impassable Forests occupied by animals in their freedom, 
 went for much more ; and the simple Souls of God's poor children 
 had through them avenues leading up to God, obscured to us 
 by the nearer horizon of our Arts and Sciences, Prejudices, and 
 Religious conceptions, the creatures of Man's Intellect at 
 particular epochs of his existence, modified but not effaced 
 by the stream of time, as it flowed on. The Soul of the 
 Heathen in its naked and untutored simplicity went straight 
 up without the intermediates of Priests to the Throne of Grace 
 and Goodness, like the lisping of the Children at the knees of 
 their Parents. They knew not the Divine Name, but they knew 
 the Hand, which gave. 
 
 There was a stage in the growth of Religious conceptions 
 which is called by Tiele, a great authority, the " Therian- 
 thropic." Men began to worship Animals (Oijp), and then the 
 chief of Animals, Man (uvOpwiros). In Totemism every tribe 
 and city had its Totem, or sacred animal, to whom it offered 
 some moderate Worship, and considered as in some way its 
 blood-relation. This developed into actual Worship : in 
 Egypt and in India we find notable examples : some animals 
 were deemed sacred, such as the Cow in India, and are 
 addressed by the ignorant herd in terms of respect, such 
 as Mahadeo. The Bull and the Cat were the objects of 
 Worship in Egypt : we read of the Calf in the Wilderness, the 
 Calves at Bethel : in his Hibbert Lecture, Montefiore, himself 
 a Hebrew, asserts, that Bulls were part of Hebrew Worship. 
 The Brahmanical system teems with them, the Fish, the 
 Tortoise, the Boar, the Man-Lion, the Elephant. Although 
 this form of Worship died out gradually, and the worshipper 
 would deny with scorn, that their Deities were ever represented 
 by animals, still there is a survival. Some Deities retain a 
 portion of an animal's body, such as Ganesa with the head of 
 an elephant. In the Assyrian and Babylonian and Egyptian 
 Monuments there is the figure of a man with the head of an 
 animal, and winged Bulls with the head of a man : a stage 
 lower certain animals are described as sacred to, and symbols
 
 ( 43 ) 
 
 of, certain Deities ; formerly they were the Deities themselves. 
 The higher development of Animal-Worship is evidenced in 
 Hero-Worship, which is ubiquitous : it is difficult to draw the 
 line betwixt Deities, when they are only Demi-gods and 
 illustrious men : the Avatara of the Hindu evidences this : 
 (i) the Tortoise, (2) the Fish, (3) the Boar, (4.) the Man-Lion, 
 (5) the Dwarf; then four Heroes. 
 
 In the Roman system there were Altars to Augustus in his 
 lifetime : 
 
 " Pnesenti tibi majores largimur honores." 
 
 (Virgil.) 
 
 In the same category come Hercules, Bacchus, Castor and 
 Pollux, and finally all the Roman Emperors. 
 
 Those unfortunate objects of Worship, such as the Egyptian 
 and Assyrian Deities, and the statue of Diana of the Ephesians, 
 have found their way into Museums : objects, which were once 
 of Worship, are now of pity, and even of derision. 
 
 The Saints of the Romish Church took the place of the 
 dethroned Deities and Demi-gods: they were expressions of 
 the same superstitious desire to conciliate something, or 
 somebody, outside the conception of God ; in many instances 
 the same tradition is carried out with only change of name : 
 there is a Church dedicated to St. Theodosius at Rome, which 
 occupies the site of a Temple to Romulus, and discharges the 
 same duty of protection of young children. In course of time 
 the statues of Saints will follow the statues of the Demi-gods, 
 and find their way to the Museums, as specimens of Art of the 
 time, and of the degree of superstition of those, who employed 
 the Art for that purpose, then of pity, and lastly of derision. 
 
 3. Ancestral. 
 
 In the last chapter the forms of Worship were general; here 
 they are individual. Appeals to the memory of deceased parents 
 and ancestors belong to the tender associations of the Human 
 Race, and within limits are holy: when a Religion is changed, 
 there is much suffering : Hindu fathers threaten to destroy 
 themselves, if their sons become Mahometan or Christian ; a 
 Roman Catholic Mother would deplore her child becoming 
 a Protestant, and vice versa. The Worship of Ancestors is one 
 of the most prevalent features in all Nations and at all times. 
 In China it is notorious: among the Romans there were the 
 Dii Penates and Lares : this feeling has led to the Worship of 
 shrines, tombs, relics : we read of the worship of Teraphim 
 among the Hebrews ; in Africa of Fetichism. Every one of these
 
 ( 44 ) 
 
 forms of Worship is based on a degraded superstition, always 
 developing. Next comes the conception of the duty of Pilgrimage: 
 Jerome, in the fourth centuryA.D., inveighed against this tendency, 
 which was growing in his age : it is now one of the sins of the 
 Church of Rome : of course Miracles soon grow out of such 
 pilgrimages, and will continue to grow : it is the same with 
 the Hindu, Mahometan, and Buddhist : the most certain cure 
 of barrenness for a woman is to go on pilgrimage. The following 
 notices are startling as occurring in London this very year: 
 
 "At St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, in Cadogan-street, 
 " S.W., there have been during the last three days special 
 " devotions in honour of ' Blessed Thomas More,' through whose 
 " intercession a remarkable cure is said to have been effected. It 
 " appears that a lady who had been upon her bed for more than 
 " four years, and who had been unable for two years even to 
 " place her foot upon the ground, requested her friends to say 
 " prayers to the Chelsea-martyr on her behalf. This they 
 " willingly did. One night recently the lady in question suddenly 
 " displayed a disposition to rise from her bed, and to her own 
 " surprise, and that of her maid, she found herself perfectly able 
 " to walk across the road." 
 
 "On Saturday the body of Romanists known as 'The Guild 
 " of Our Lady of Ransom,' had their annual pilgrimage to the 
 " shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. According 
 " to a daily contemporary, the proceedings in the Cathedral ' were 
 " characterized by great devotion,' the pilgrim being asked to 
 " pray earnestly, ' especially for the reconversion of this country 
 " to the faith, in defence of which the blissful martyr died.' ' 
 
 No one can be present at an Indian place of pilgrimage, such 
 as the Ganges, without feeling what a vast capacity of Religious 
 enthusiasm the Hindu has, a capacity of Sacrifice to God of his 
 all, for many do not live to return home ; a readiness to bear 
 hardships, long journeys, hunger, thirst, sickness, death : all for 
 the love of the Deity. Does the European Missionary give the 
 poor Pagan the credit of this ? does he himself live up to 
 the same ideal ? 
 
 The Idea of the advantage of a Pilgrimage is common to all 
 Religious conceptions. 
 
 " He who has controlled his own spirit and desires, who has 
 " knowledge, piety, and a good character, gathers fruit from 
 " a pilgrimage. Even in the sacred forest inflamed passions 
 " cause crime, and in the city self-control brings piety to dwell. 
 " The virtuous man's home is his desert of devotion." (Sacred 
 Anthology, p. 140.) 
 
 A poor pilgrim followed the caravan to Mekka, but when 
 she saw the others praying round the Kaaba, she cried out, 
 " Oh ! weak followers of the weak, thou hast travelled land and
 
 ( 45 ) 
 
 " sea to seek in this far-off place the god, who had long ago 
 " come to thee." (Julaluddin : Sacred Anthology, p. 90.) 
 
 The pious Hindu traverses the length and breadth of India, 
 laying himself flat on the ground, making a mark in the earth 
 where his head lay, rising up, and placing his feet where his 
 head was, thus slowly advancing towards the place of pilgrimage 
 in days, months, and years. 
 
 In a paper on " Hausa Pilgrimages from the Western Sudan," 
 the Rev. Charles H. Robinson said, that he had just returned 
 from a preliminary journey along part of the north border of 
 the Sahara, which had been made with a view to ascertain the 
 possibility of crossing the Great Sahara from Tripoli in order 
 to visit the Hausa States, which lay to the west of Lake 
 Tchad, and to the north of the Niger and river Binue. His 
 intercourse with Hausa-speaking natives in North Africa served 
 to reveal the enormous extent, to which the pilgrimage to Mekka 
 was affecting the life and habits of the people in the far in- 
 terior. Many thousands of such pilgrims found their way 
 thence to Mekka, some by crossing the Great Sahara, and 
 going by sea from Tripoli, others by way of Wadai, Darfur, 
 Khartum, and Suakin. 
 
 Now that the Government of India has arranged with Messrs. 
 Cook, of Ludgate Circus, to conduct the Mahometan Pilgrimage, 
 we get more accurate statistics of this great Religious phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 The Mekka Pilgrim Traffic. "A brief account of last year's 
 " pilgrimage to Mekka is now published in Consul Richard's 
 " Report on the trade of Jeddah. As the principal day of the Haj 
 " fell on a Friday, it was anticipated, that the number of pilgrims 
 " would be very large, but the reality outstripped the most 
 " sanguine anticipations. At Jeddah and Yambo over 90,000 
 " landed : that is about double the average : and, in all, from 
 " 250,000 to 300,000 persons went to Mekka during the season, 
 " British India supplying the largest number. Cholera, it will 
 " be remembered, raged in the Mekka valley while the pilgrims 
 " were there, the daily number of deaths being at least 1,000, 
 " and, subsequently, the disease broke out at Jeddah, where they 
 " were waiting for embarkation, and from 500 to 600 deaths 
 " occurred daily. Mr. Richards sa3 T s the official estimate of 
 " deaths of those, who travelled by sea, which was 9,577, was 
 " certainly below the mark, while no fewer than 15,000 of those 
 " who went to Mekka by land perished. Thus last year's Haj 
 " will be memorable for the extraordinary number of the faithful, 
 " who took part in its ceremonies, and for the ravages, which 
 " were far greater than any previous record. Indeed, to a great 
 " extent, this may be considered as an ordinary sequence of cause 
 " and effect, although, undoubtedly, the fact, that the simoon was
 
 ( 46 ) 
 
 " blowing steadily and unintermittently for eleven days during the 
 " latter end of May, while the heat during the first ten days of 
 " June was unusually intense, contributed not a little to the 
 " development of conditions, under which the rapid spread of 
 " the disease was inevitable." 
 
 So deeply rooted in the Semitic mind is the belief in the 
 Sanctity of Stones, that Mahomet allowed the Kaaba of Mekka, 
 in Arabia, to remain as an object of Worship in his new 
 Religion, thus separating his Religious conception from the 
 Buddhist and Christian, inasmuch as they both belong to the 
 world at large, and have no permanent tie to any particular 
 country. 
 
 The diseaseof Relic-Worship breaks out in unexpected quarters. 
 When the remains of Mr. Spurgeon were brought to England, 
 the following is recorded in the paper of the day: "The coffin 
 " was enclosed in a packing-case, and on the arrival of the 
 " steamer was removed out of the case and deposited in the van 
 " attached to the train. The impulse, which leads men to treasure 
 " tangible objects connected with the notable dead, is strong even 
 " among those, who profess to rate low all material associations, 
 " and some of the spectators yesterday eagerly seized chips and 
 " fragments of cordage, as the coffin was removed." 
 
 Under this head of Relics must come the brazen serpent kept 
 by the Hebrews, and very properly destroyed by King Hezekiah ; 
 the Romans had a Palladium. In many parts of the world there 
 are stores of such relics : at Lahor we had the sleeping drawers of 
 Mahomet ; at Treves the Holy Coat : both in Christian Europe, 
 and Mahometan, and Pagan, Asia and Africa, the Fetich is 
 the lowest type. Among the people in the Kongo-basin crosses, 
 and rosaries, left by the Romish Mission, who centuries ago 
 occupied that Region, are still prized as Pagan Fetiches, 
 showing how closely united are all false developments of the 
 Religious Idea. 
 
 It is difficult to realize the feelings of a newly-converted 
 member of the Church of Rome : all credit be given to him ior 
 selecting his own way of Salvation with all his heart, and no 
 doubt he has found his Saviour. But suddenly the world is to 
 him peopled with Spirits : the Apostles are, as it were, brought 
 again to life ; holy men and women of the Middle Ages, 
 supposed to have been long in their graves, St. Francis, 
 St. Teresa, and others, became objects of interest, and 
 Worship, and of prayer. Conspicuous among them is the 
 Mother of Christ, and her husband, Joseph, now placed by 
 an audacious Bishop in charge of all the Missions to Africa : 
 all these august personages are supposed to be cognizant of his 
 thoughts, appear to him in his dreams, have power to interfere 
 in his favour, and are powerful to save.
 
 ( ^ ) 
 
 The ark of the Lord became a Palladium, and was taken into 
 battle, and, in fact, was taken prisoner: it was a fair taunt in the 
 mouth of the Philistines, that a Deity, which could not take care 
 of His own Ark, could scarcely be a powerful Deity. In the 
 Spanish wars to free Spain from the Mahometans, the black 
 Virgin of the Pilar at Zaragossa was constantly at the head 
 of the Spanish forces, and, according to them, brought victory. 
 
 I quote an esteemed authority about Spirits : 
 
 "In Oceania one ruling idea of Worship prevails, that the 
 " Spirits of the Dead are the rulers, and protectors of the living: 
 " the mysterious power called ' Mana,' abides with such after 
 " death, and a powerful man in the world will be a powerful 
 " Spirit after death in another world. It is conceived of 
 "as being of like passions with ourselves; it is conciliated 
 " to be a friend, yet it is deemed to be ever ready on the least 
 " offence to be malevolent, and against others it is invoked for 
 " every kind of injury: the element of dread superstition enters 
 "into all the transactions of life." (Bishop John Selwyn : 
 Ramsden Sermons, May 21, 1893.) 
 
 " In the battle of life there is one thought, to obtain Spiritual 
 " help : preparing for the fight, the native eats the leaf of a tree, 
 " which he believes will fill him with the strength of the Spirit of 
 " the Sun : if he kill a man, he deems, that his arrow has been 
 " directed by the Mana, or Spirit, with which he is endowed." 
 {Ibid.) 
 
 " When we tell our converts of the power of the Spirit, which 
 " God gives through Christ, we tell them what their simple 
 " Faith at once understands." {Ibid.) 
 
 4. Sacrifice. 
 
 I was standing a few years ago, one Sunday forenoon, in the 
 gallery of the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, close to the tomb 
 of the great Emperor Charlemagne, who died over one thousand 
 years ago. As I looked on the performance of High Mass 
 going on in the Chancel below me, and on the suspended 
 Crucifix above, and the figures of the Saints around me ; as I 
 smelt the smell of incense, listened to the Latin chants of 
 unintelligent perfunctory Priests, and looked at the stupid 
 bovine faces of the German boers, who occasionally threw 
 in a formal response, I thought to myself, Can the Almighty 
 accept such Worship ? God is a Spirit, and they, that worship 
 Him, must worship in Spirit and Truth : both these ingredients 
 were totally absent here : it was a mere function ; a Royal 
 lev6e ; a grand guard mounting ; a salute of so many guns from 
 a warship : " Vox et prasterea nihil."
 
 ( 48 ) 
 
 My thoughts ascended to the beginning of recorded History, 
 and wandered round the world. Man is no doubt a Religious 
 animal, but his Religion is evidenced in a different way at a 
 different epoch of Human existence, marking Progress. When 
 the Lord turned the captivity of Job, he prayed for his friends, 
 a Spiritual Worship, but the friends were ordered in expiation 
 of their offences to "offer a Sacrifice of seven bullocks and 
 seven rams at a burnt Sacrifice": it matters not, whether the 
 book of Job is a drama, or actual History, for it represents 
 the feelings of the writer and the readers, at the time of its 
 being composed, whenever that was. No one in these last 
 days would dream of sacrificing beasts in atonement for sin, 
 not even the Hebrews of Houndsditch ; and yet in all Pagan 
 Annals of the past, and all narratives of Pagan customs in the 
 present, Sacrifice in some form, and even Human Sacrifice, 
 is found to be the chief lever for obtaining God's pardon, 
 and protection. The abstract Idea is dead, but there are still 
 survivals of antetypes, analogies, dedications, and mere verbiage 
 of Ritual, where the ancient word is used to express a later 
 conception, such as "the Sacrifice of God is a broken Spirit" ; 
 "we render our Souls and bodies a living Sacrifice"; and in 
 one of the French translations of the New Testament the 
 technical word lepevs is rendered by " Sacrifateur." The Jews 
 in their Synagogues in London in this epoch pray, that 
 the institution of Sacrifice may be restored ; the enlightened 
 Hebrews protest in vain against this Archaic conception. 
 (Jewish Quarterly Review, Feb., 1893.) 
 
 This very year, January 7, I read in The Graphic, how a sheep 
 was sacrificed by the Mahometan Rulers of Syria, on the 
 occasion of the railway being commenced from Haifa to 
 Damascus. Paul, in his Epistles to the Galatians, iii, 13, and 
 Ephesians, v, 2, seems to borrow a Homeric Idea, and, sniffing 
 the well-known smell in the Temple Court, writes of a "Sacrifice 
 of sweet savour," though in a metaphorical sense. The 
 enormous number of victims attributed to Solomon in the 
 Chronicles on the opening of the Temple, must be a gross 
 exaggeration, or a wicked, and frightful, cruelty to brute beasts. 
 Homer tells us of hecatombs, but a hecatomb is as nothing 
 compared to Hebrew annals. Of Human Sacrifice we have 
 instances among the Druids of Britain, the Azteks of Mexico, 
 the Polynesians of Oceania; among the Greeks the Sacrifice of 
 Iphigenia, among the Hebrews the case of Abraham and 
 Isaac, and Jephthah, and the passing children through the fire ; 
 in India it is only a quarter of a century back, that the practice 
 was put down by force of arms among a non-Arian tribe in the 
 Province of Bangal. 
 
 A terrible example of the remains of heathenism in Russia
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 is mentioned in the Moscow Gazette and other journals. A trial, 
 in 1894, took place of a number of peasants living- in a district 
 of Kazan for killing one of their numbers as a Sacrifice to the 
 idols of the Votjaks, a Finn Race, of whom considerable 
 numbers continue to live in more or less uncivilized conditions 
 along the Volga between the Viatka and Kama rivers. 
 
 The Sacrifice of female chastity, either in the ordinary way, 
 or by connection with a stone lingam, is more disgusting, though 
 less bloody. 
 
 Socrates' dying words were, "A cock to /Esculapius." In 
 the Anthology we read : 
 
 " Rode, caper, vitem, tamen hinc, cum stabis ad aram, 
 In tua quod spargi cornua possit, erit." 
 
 This shows how a vegetable libation of wine was coupled with 
 the animal Sacrifice. 
 
 But presents were also offered, and I fear are still, to 
 Demi-gods and Demi-goddesses, under the name of Saints and 
 Saintesses. In Virgil we read how the poor Trojan women, in 
 the agony of the siege, took a garment to offer to the goddess, 
 who would not look at them. In how many a Romish Chapel 
 altar-cloths, candlesticks, diamonds, are offered to saints, who, 
 it is to be feared, have never evidenced their satisfaction to their 
 worshippers. 
 
 Aristophanes exposes the gross conception, that the gods 
 and goddesses actually consumed the food offered: in "The 
 Birds" he describes, how a wall was run up in mid-Heaven, and 
 the gods of Olympus were starved out. Homer tells us, how 
 the gods used to go to dine with the blameless Ethiopians. In 
 the Apocryphal Book "Bel and the Dragon" we read, how the 
 priest ate the sacrifices, and made the people believe that 
 the god ate it. No doubt the Hebrew Priest lived by the Altar : 
 his salary was paid, therefore, in slaughtered beasts. This is 
 clear from the story of the sons of Eli in I Samuel, ii. 
 
 The offering of Sacrifice is described as being of two 
 kinds: (1) fruits of the earth, (2) animals, including Human 
 beings; and with two objects: (1) hostia honorata, a token of 
 love and gratitude, and (2) hostia piaculans, an atonement, a 
 bribe to ward off evil, a price to purchase some gift (Enc. 
 Brit, xxi, p. 132). Neither Greek philosopher, nor Jewish 
 Rabbi, ever got clear of the Idea, that Sacrifice afforded some 
 physical satisfaction to the Deity : if it did not actually feed 
 him, he was at least gratified by the odour: this was the only 
 intercourse betwixt the Deity and man : they shared the same 
 feast : such Worship was closely National, for men of different 
 tribes could not eat or drink together. The Idea of Sacrifice 
 occupied an important place in early Christianity : it had been 
 
 4
 
 ( 50 ) 
 
 a fundamental element of both Jewish and Gentile Religions, 
 and Christianity had to absorb and modify it. But already to 
 many Jews, and Gentiles, the conception was dying out, and 
 a new belief had sprung up, that the most appropriate offering 
 to the Deity was that of a pure and humble heart, and that 
 Prayer was the proper channel of communication. Among the 
 ignorant the gross conception still survives : the people of 
 the Panjab only a few years ago believed, that the British 
 Government, when commencing a public work of importance, 
 had given orders secretly to collect children's heads, as a 
 propitiatory Sacrifice to the River Deities. Unless they had 
 still within themselves the fundamental Idea of Sacrifice of 
 animals, they would not have attributed such a scheme to 
 others. A rumour of such a kind would avail nothing in 
 Europe. 
 
 Human Sacrifice disappeared by the substitution of animal 
 Sacrifice. We read in II Kings, iii, 27, that Mesha, king of 
 Moab, about 895 B.C., " took his eldest son, who should have 
 reigned in his stead, and offered him on the wall for a burnt- 
 offering." We must recollect, that this is the statement of a 
 hostile narrator, but we find in II Kings, xxiii, 10, that in 
 625 B.C. the residents at Jerusalem made their sons, or 
 daughters, pass through fire to Molech ; and in II Kings, xxi, 6, 
 and II Chronicles, xxiii, 6, we read that Manasseh, king of 
 Judah, made his son, and children, pass through the fire : and 
 this is the report of two National Chroniclers, who may be 
 credited with knowledge. Animal Sacrifice disappeared under 
 the influence of civilization, and in the case of Christians by 
 the conviction, that Christ was the complete, and final, Sacrifice : 
 the sacerdotal Sacrifice of bread and wine in its extreme view 
 is but a remembrance of this one great Sacrifice, for that form 
 of Worship has had its day. If by some turn of Fortune's 
 wheel the Hebrew Race were to get possession of Jerusalem, 
 and rebuild their temple, they would find insuperable obstacles 
 to the reintroduction of a rite, which is out of date. 
 
 The Pagan Idea of Religion was a quid for a quo : " I 
 sacrifice to the gods: the gods look after my welfare": the 
 remnant of the Idea clings to the Worship of Saints. A bowl 
 of milk was put out by the farmer's wife to conciliate Robin 
 Goodfellow. A low view exists among some Christians : 
 how can you expect God to look after you, if you never 
 go to Church, and say your prayers ? but Love, not Fear, 
 should be the attraction to God : Faith and Hope lead 
 up to Love : "Though He slay me, I will trust in Him." But 
 the Sacrifice of Self, the readiness to lay Self on the Altar 
 of God, in God's service, for the saving of Souls of fellow- 
 creatures, that great and inestimable gift of Self-Sacrifice,
 
 ( 51 ) 
 
 still survives, and will last as long as Human hearts beat : the 
 antetype has swallowed up the type. The Roman, who leapt 
 into the yawning chasm to save his country, set the example : 
 the Idea seems monstrous to slaughter, not the wild beast, but 
 the domestic animals, such as oxen, sheep, goats, pigeons, and 
 turtle-doves : it is possible that a lamb, which was the playmate 
 of the children, would have its throat cut, as a Religious act, 
 by the father. We do not read of a single Hebrew man or 
 woman offering themselves as a bona-fide Sacrifice : instances 
 occur of devotion to country like that of Judith, but as a rule 
 devout men preferred offering a substitute, and one cannot 
 blame them : so that there was no personal service, and it goes 
 without saying, that the liberal Sacrifices of the great and 
 powerful were violently supplied from the herds of the weak 
 and poor. To surrender life for the welfare of another is the 
 perfection of Human Virtue, Love stronger than Death. 
 Scarcely for a righteous man before the great Anno Domini 
 would a man die, however ready he was to slaughter innocent 
 animals, and turn his place of Worship into a Butcher's 
 Shambles. 
 
 The Hindu went further : he believed, that the power of 
 Sacrifice was so great, that the gods could be compelled to do 
 what the worshipper required. With the Greeks the use of the 
 word erafiov, in connection with the completion of a contract, 
 shows, that the death of one of God's creatures was considered 
 necessary to ratify an agreement. No Divine Command is 
 quoted as an authority for this institution : it is mentioned in 
 connection with the two first of the Human Race that were 
 born, and there is reason to believe, that the practice was 
 universal, and the spirit of the word has survived to our time, 
 though for centuries the practice has ceased. 
 
 " New treasures still of countless price, 
 God will provide for Sacrifice." 
 
 (Keble.) 
 
 To what a deep degradation the custom had fallen is evidenced 
 by the assembled Greek leaders, at the advice of their Priest, 
 not deeming it unworthy of themselves after due deliberation 
 to sacrifice the life of a young girl : the conscience of mankind 
 was improving, for within a few centuries before the great Anno 
 Domini, Lucretius, the Poet, wrote his scathing condemnation : 
 and we read that the Sect of the Essenes in the second century 
 before Anno Domini declined to make bloody Sacrifice, and 
 substituted vegetable offerings (Renan : Israel, vol. v, p. 66). 
 Professor Robertson Smith, in his Burnett Lectures, Aberdeen, 
 gives an elaborate exposition of the theory, that the original
 
 ( 52 ) 
 
 Idea of Sacrifice was that of a meal partaken in common by 
 the members of a particular tribe, and their tribal Deity. 
 (Fundamental Institution of Semitic Religion, 1889.) 
 
 The gross view of Sacrifice no doubt was, that a bloody king, 
 a dishonest official, a bad, libidinous, cruel man, could throw off 
 in some such way the result of an evil life, and of all the misery, 
 which was brought on his contemporaries, by a spell of osten- 
 tatious repentance, and the Sacrifice of innocent animals to 
 conciliate a god, whom he had neglected, insulted, and offended 
 all his life. The Hindu Moralist saw this; in the Vishnu 
 Purana I read : 
 
 " Holy acts of Sacrifice are performed by those, who are 
 " devoted to their own duties, whose conduct is right and free 
 " from blemish, who are good, and tread in good paths." 
 
 Seneca discovered that " the gods were not to be worshipped 
 by victims, however costly and refulgent with gold, but to be 
 honoured with a pious and upright heart." 
 
 The Hebrew Prophets and Psalmist had long before pointed 
 this out : 
 
 " The Sacrifice of God is a broken Spirit." 
 
 " Make no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination 
 to Me." 
 
 " I will have Mercy, and not Sacrifice." 
 
 Yet still up to the very last day of the existence of Jerusalem 
 the daily Sacrifice, during the Roman siege, was performed, as if 
 it were of vital importance to the State and the Religion. In 
 the obliquity of their vision they seemed quite oblivious of the 
 change of the drift of thought of mankind, or were determined 
 to despise it. The Jews of the Dispersion could have had no 
 Sacrifice, and learnt to do very well without it, as the Jews do 
 at the present time. 
 
 All Human Institutions, even when divinely originated, have 
 the term of their existence fixed ; if allowed to exist beyond 
 that, then they become anachronisms, because the Ideal of 
 moral conceptions has risen above their level. It is quite 
 unnecessary to condemn the practice in past ages, or to pass 
 any opinion upon the possibility of its having satisfied the 
 requirements of a people no longer existing. Sacrifice is 
 certainly one of the Institutions, which the world has out- 
 grown. The most ignorant peasant of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury would smile at the Idea of Sacrificing a turtle-dove on the 
 occasion of the Baptism of his child. 
 
 Libations are in some degree subsidiary to Sacrifice : when 
 the gross conception of the Deity consuming the food and 
 drink offered was outgrown, the former was consumed by fire,
 
 ( 53 ) 
 
 and the latter poured out on the ground. In Psalm 1, 13, we 
 have the following : 
 
 " Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? " 
 
 But there is no other instance. In the Graeco-Roman world 
 it was exceedingly common. Dr. Legge tells us, that to this 
 day in China libations are made, not in the sense of propitiation, 
 or expiation of Sin, but as tributes of duty and gratitude, the 
 Idea of substitution having never entered the Chinese mind. 
 (Religion of China, p. 53.) 
 
 5. Prayer. 
 
 All mankind in past and present times, and in all Regions, 
 have been ready to have recourse to Prayer of some sort or 
 other: they have recognised, that there existed a Power greater 
 than themselves, and they tried to get help from Him, flying to 
 the Deity for help in doubt, creeping to Him in sorrow : their 
 Prayers may have been most unworthy, but the fact remains, 
 that they prayed ; they believed that they would get something, 
 and, moreover, in many cases they expressed thanks for mercies 
 received in reply to Prayer. 
 
 Prayer was often an act of merchandise : adoration was offered 
 to the Deity, His protection solicited and expected : if the Deity 
 failed, the petitioner would go elsewhere : both Sacrifice and 
 Prayer were commercial transactions : " do ut des " ; Jacob 
 make this very clear (Genesis, xxviii, 20-22) : " If God will be 
 " with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give 
 " me bread to eat, and raiment to put on ... . then shall the 
 " Lord be my God .... and of all that Thou shalt give me, 
 " I will surely give the tenth unto Thee." 
 
 A universal Hindu Conference was held at Banaras, 1892, 
 and a Report read on the subject of the deterioration of the 
 Brahmanical Religion in its practice. One of the conclusions 
 of the Report was, that all the Priests of the Temple should offer 
 Prayer to the Supreme Power, so that their Religion might be 
 saved from the state, to which it had sunk. A day for general 
 Prayer was fixed. (G. Smith: Conversion of India, p. 220.) 
 
 We catch a glimpse of the Roman Soldier at the epoch 
 of Anno Domini : he was not necessarily an Italian, or a 
 European, but certainly a Gentile ; but he is described as 
 " a devout man, and one that feared God, with all his house, 
 which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway " 
 (Acts, x, 2). No doubt many of the Jews, who opposed the 
 new movement, were devout, almsgiving, and prayerful, very 
 much as the Hindu, who are described in the preceding 
 paragraph.
 
 ( 54 ) 
 
 When a man in an Oriental country tries to get something 
 out of one higher in position and power than himself, 
 he approaches with flattery: all know it in India: officials 
 are told that, they are the wisest, and the best : the petitioner 
 would bribe, if he dared : he gets others more influential to 
 intercede for him : this is the instinct, motif, and origin 
 of Prayer. He clothes his Deity with all the tastes, weaknesses, 
 of his own Race : he tries music, and litanies, and hymns, 
 to conciliate Him, and sometimes has recourse to abuse, when 
 he cannot get what he wants. 
 
 Threats were held out to the special Deity, warning him 
 that he must do his duty, or take the consequences. An 
 Egyptian woman in childbed identifies herself with the goddess 
 Isis, calls on the other gods to assist her in her labour, and 
 threatens the direst consequences to the whole world, if 
 anything happens to her. Thus Prayer was superseded by 
 menace. Porphyry, 270 a.d., mentions a case, and remarks on 
 the madness of man, who thus threatens Powers, whom he deems 
 to be so weak and feeble as to listen to threats. Analogous to 
 this is the Spanish sailor, who flogs the Statue of St. Martin, if 
 he does not supply the wind required. 
 
 In Brittany the customs of the population were primitive, 
 and their Religion was a sort of Christianity grafted on the 
 most evident Paganism. They worshipped innumerable Saints 
 unknown to the Roman Calendar, and did not scruple to 
 threaten these Divinities, when they wanted anything from 
 them. A blacksmith, whose child was ill, stalked into the 
 roadside Chapel where the statue of his favourite Saint stood, 
 and, brandishing a red-hot horse-shoe, threatened to " shoe 
 the saint," if the child did not recover. 
 
 The Tibetan Buddhist cuts out figures of horses in paper, 
 and commits them to the wind with a view of carrying help, 
 paper-help, to some traveller. The Poet Horace tells us of the 
 owners of merchandise in home-returning vessels running down 
 to the shore to appease the Storm-gods by their "miserable" 
 Prayers and vows to save their profits from the storm. The 
 Prayer of the British Missionary Society is for more money, and 
 when the Lord of the Harvest, under which term Missionary 
 Societies habitually address the Ruler of the World, grants it, 
 then the cry is for more men to spend the money : at the same 
 time, in France, the Lord of the Vineyard is petitioned by 
 the owner to send abundant grapes, and of such quality as 
 will make good intoxicating wine. I have known portions of an 
 Indian District, in which directly contrary prayers are being 
 made : the cultivators of the cotton-fields implore their particular 
 local Deity to send rain, as their crop is grown in unirrigated 
 soil, as a rain-crop : money is offered in the temple to conciliate
 
 ( 5.5 ) 
 
 the great Cloud-compeller. At the same time the cultivator 
 of the sugar-cane, which is an irrigated crop, dependent on 
 wells, prays that rain be not sent, as it will be as untimely as 
 rain in hay-season in Europe. Rival Sovereigns at war are 
 having " Te Deums" intoned in their several Cathedrals at the 
 same hour on account of the same event. 
 
 It is clear that two sets of people may be praying for the very 
 contrary result : the passengers of a ship in a storm were 
 praying for safety, and vowing a portion of their merchandise 
 to their Deity; the "wreckers" on a dangerous coast were 
 supplicating their Deity to send them spoil, promising a share. 
 
 Throughout the great Sanskrit Epic of the Ramayana, we have 
 accounts of blessings exacted from the unwilling Deity by the 
 force of Prayer. The opponents of the Bill proposed a few 
 years ago to modify the existing custom, having the force of law, 
 regarding infant-marriages in Hindu Families, held a Religious 
 service at Kalighat, near Calcutta, in the year 1891, and offered 
 Prayers and Sacrifices to the goddess Kali, to induce her to 
 influence the Viceroy of India not to pass the Bill into law. 
 Only in 1893 the Priests of Rome in Hungary distributed forms 
 of printed Prayers to the Virgin Mary for ignorant fools to 
 repeat to prevent the introduction by law of Civil Contract of 
 Matrimony : it sounds ridiculous : the majority of mankind are 
 fools. Hired mourners were called in to say Prayers after a 
 death ; hireling Priests are still called in to repeat Masses ; 
 vain repetitions are common in all countries: "Ave Maria"; 
 " Ram Ram " ; " Bismillah." The Prayer of the Buddhist is for 
 nothing, and to nobody: it is merely the use of a form of words 
 for the purpose of heaping up merit : the prayer-wheel was 
 invented by the Tibetans, that the words, " Om Mani Pani horn " 
 ("Oh the Beautiful Lotus !"), might be turned round by the hand. 
 
 Specimens of Prayers in use with the Brahmanical, the 
 Zoroastrian, the Confucian, the Egyptian, the Mahometan, 
 have been collected (Gifford Lectures, 1893, p. 22). They 
 present a strange picture of the common infirmity of the Human 
 Race : 
 
 " The kind Creator casts His pitying eyes 
 On the pale upturned faces, and denies." 
 
 Hear about the Jews in England : 
 
 " Most of the Jews of the poorer parts of London, when they 
 " wish to say their Prayer, go through a series of sounds, of the 
 " meaning of which they have not the slightest idea, and which, 
 " as they utter them, often have no meaning at all. Should 
 " anyone enter the room, as the Jew stands at his devotions, 
 " he is not at all disturbed; he merely turns round and talks to
 
 ( 56 ) 
 
 " the visitor for a few minutes, and then returns to the per- 
 " functory repetition of sounds ! Again, after a minute or so 
 " he renews his conversation, and once more returns to his 
 " Religious duties, and so on, until there is no one to talk to, 
 •' or the Prayer is over. Stranger than all this, is the fact, that 
 " it is, humanly speaking, impossible to convince him, that all 
 " this is a mockery ; so low is the Jewish estimate of the 
 " Divine Mind." (J. H. Scott, Rector of Spitalfields.) 
 
 Prayer is nowhere commanded as a duty in the Hebrew law, 
 and Prayers were only prescribed at the Sacrifices on the day 
 of Atonement, and the thanksgiving offering for firstfruits : it 
 is probable that it always accompanied Sacrifice : we read in 
 Genesis, iv, 26, that men began " to call upon the name of the 
 Lord": in the century preceding Anno Domini there was an 
 excess of formal Prayer among the Pharisees. 
 
 The Poet Juvenal, nineteen centuries back, had discovered 
 the vanity of all this, and remarks that " Man is held dearer 
 " by the Deity, than he is by the Man himself, and that the 
 " Deity knows best what is really useful, or really detrimental, 
 " to Mankind." I quote his magnificent lines, as a landmark 
 in Human progress : 
 
 " Ut tamen et poscas aliquid, voveasque sacellis 
 " Exta, et candiduli divina tomacula porci : 
 " Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano : 
 " Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem, 
 " Qui spatium vitag extrema inter munera ponat 
 " Naturae, qui ferre queat quoscunque labores ; 
 " Nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil : Semita certe 
 " Tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitas." 
 
 {Sat. X, 346.) 
 
 To give an idea of the abuse of Prayer I quote the following, 
 lately printed (Daughters of Syria, April, 1893): "We moved 
 " to another village occupied by Druses in Mount Lebanon ; 
 " we lost nothing all the time, except one teaspoon, and we 
 " prayed about it, and it was brought back. What a gracious 
 " Master we have, so ready to undertake any little detail of our 
 " daily life ! " This shows how very slightly the Religious 
 conception has advanced since the days of the Hebrews. 
 
 The approach to the Deity in Prayer has been at all times 
 either collective or private, either real or formal. We know 
 what the teaching of Christ was, but it has made little 
 effect in modern Christian Churches. We have a form of 
 words, very often in a language totally unknown to the one 
 who prays; in words familiar as regards sound, but the meaning 
 of which is quite unknown. Prayers are offered for things,
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 which the worshipper cares not for, a mere common form, 
 such as the Deity influencing the heart of the Sovereign, or 
 asking for Peace within their own borders, when the Nation 
 is attacking weaker tribes in Asia or Africa all round without 
 any provocation. Then, again, Music in many Churches crushes 
 the prayer, or the words are taken out of the mouth of the con- 
 gregation by unconverted young men and boys in white surplices, 
 who happen to be gifted with the power of sweet sounds ; or 
 it is intoned in a non-natural way by a trained Clerk in Orders. 
 When civilized Nations act in the present day in such manner, 
 how can we wonder at the conduct of the Priests of Baal on 
 Mount Carmel ? They at least had Faith, though in a wrong 
 person, and they gave their lives for that Faith, and were as 
 much Martyrs, as any recorded in History. 
 
 The Roman Catholic, the Ritualist, the Evangelical, the 
 Hindu, Buddhist, Mahometan, are using the same weapons 
 each after their own method to confound each other. The 
 stereotyped form of an Evangelical Meeting is to utter Prayer, 
 that things may turn out in the way that those who pray wish : 
 " insanum vulgus vult fieri quod vult": that the Papists may 
 be confounded, the Ritualists be put to flight, and the vacant 
 see be not filled up with another High Church wolf; that all 
 men be brought to the Truth {i.e. the Truth as held by the 
 Meeting) ; that the Indo-Chinese Opium-Trade be stopped, the 
 Slave-dealer be shot down, U-ganda and Ma-Shona-land be 
 annexed to Great Britain ; that the Missionary's wife be safely 
 delivered of her tenth child, that suitable candidates come 
 forward for vacant posts, and that the Lord of the Harvest send 
 bread to feed these extra mouths, and support their large 
 families of children; that the followers of the false prophet may 
 be routed ; that the real meaning of Faith, as interpreted in the 
 Church Missionary Society's Intelligencer, Sept., 1893, p. 711, 
 be practically and unfalteringly evidenced by contributions 
 increased to meet a standard of expenditure, such as no cautious 
 Christian can possibly approve of. 
 
 Within a few streets we have a procession of the Guards 
 of the League of the Cross, carrying a banner of " Our Lady 
 of Ransom," and singing such hymns as : 
 
 " Oh ! when shall we gaze on 
 
 " Her Glory restored ? 
 " Oh ! when will poor England 
 
 " Return to Her Lord ? 
 " Behold in St. Paul's 
 
 " The sweet Mother replaced, 
 " And Westminster now with 
 
 " Her image is graced."
 
 ( 58 ) 
 
 The Procession passed by a side street, in which there stands 
 a Jewish Synagogue, where Prayers are still offered for the 
 Restitution of the Sacrifice of Animals, where male babies have 
 their persons cruelly mutilated, and animals are killed for 
 consumption in a manner believed by many to be calculated 
 to put them to unnecessary torture for the purpose of main- 
 taining the husk of an Idea of a few thousands, who have 
 missed step in the spiritual progress of Religious conceptions. 
 
 I remember how in Paris thousands of women thronged the 
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, praying all night, that the Empress 
 Eugenie might be delivered of a son : were their Prayers heard ? 
 Did any advantage to the Nation at large, or to those women 
 in particular, come of it ? 
 
 The Poet Milton, in one of his beautiful odes, describes 
 a noble Christian lady as "calling the heathen goddess Lucina 
 to her throes." The Amir Dost Mahomed of Kabul, while 
 a prisoner in North India, was offering his regular Prayer in 
 due form, when he overheard two Christians, sitting near him, 
 conversing, and stating some facts about a horse : the Dost 
 turned round and said in Persian. " Darogh ast" ("it is a lie"), 
 and then went on with his Arabic Prayers, not one word of 
 which he understood any better than an Italian peasant does 
 of a Latin Litany. When the Khedive went to pay his respects 
 to the Sultan at Constantinople, the Court Circular notes, how 
 they went together to the weekly Prayers. The great Reformer 
 of the Panjab, Baba Nanak, enlarges on the subject of Prayer, 
 and tells one of his enquirers, that his Prayer was nothing, as he 
 was thinking all the time of his horses. The idea of Prayer 
 entertained by the Jews is illustrated by the fact, that in the 
 Song of the Three Children, all the elements, seasons, the 
 animate, the inanimate, world, are represented as offering praise 
 to the Deity with much the same spiritual force as poor 
 ignorant men. 
 
 I have brought together these instances from different 
 countries, and ages, to illustrate how far the conception, or 
 practice, of Prayer has departed from the Sermon on the Mount, 
 and the Epistle' of James, v, 16, and it is difficult to say, whether 
 the privilege of approaching the Deity in the humble accents of 
 Praise, Confession of Sin, and Prayer, has been more painfully 
 abused by heathen Monarchs, or sensational self-satisfied 
 individuals, and coteries, in the middle classes of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 When we consider the words of the Hymns of the Pagan 
 world, such as the Hymns to Amen Ra (Records of the Past), 
 the Hymns of the early Veda, and portions of the Bhagavad- 
 Gita, passages in Homer and Virgil, and the Athenian 
 Tragedians, we cannot but remark with how strong a uniformity
 
 ( 59 ) 
 
 of language the feelings of the Human heart find utterance, 
 when under the pressure of trouble, or the conviction of sin : 
 
 " tKwi/, 6/cwc, iniapiov' ovk (ipvi/ffofiai. 
 
 It is not a monopoly of the Hebrew Scriptures, though a 
 beautiful feature in them. 
 
 Not only is Prayer available to ask for spiritual or material 
 blessings for the one, who may offer Prayer, but malignant 
 Prayers are offered to injure others : thus we read that Elias 
 made Prayer, that there should be no rain for 3^- years 
 (tV< t»)s 7/y?) in the land. It may mean the Kingdom of Israel, 
 or all the world over, and was a dreadful request to make by an 
 erring Human creature. In China one man, the Sovereign of 
 China, though of an alien Race from his subjects, is the only 
 person permitted to present to the Lord of the Universe the 
 National offerings of Reverence, Gratitude, and Prayer. In India 
 such duties devolve on the Father of each family just as much 
 as labouring to procure their daily food. I once asked a young 
 Hindu what kind of Prayers he offered : he replied, " None, as 
 that was his father's business." I have sat in Hindu, and Sikh, 
 temples, trying to fathom the motive of the singsong chanting 
 of the Purana, or the Granth, which my acquired knowledge 
 enabled me to follow better than Priest or People, but to the 
 assembled masses they were sounds, and they ejaculated Ram 
 Ram, or Wa Guru, in return at intervals. In Japan petitioners 
 write their petitions on paper, or have it written by the Priest ; 
 they then put it into their mouths, and chew it to a paste, and 
 spit it at the image of the Deity : if well aimed, and if the 
 paper sticks, it is a good omen, that the Prayer is heard 
 (Cobbold's Religion in Japan, S.P.C.K.). Homer tells us 
 how Ulysses retired to a solitary place away from his companions 
 to pray to the Immortal Gods for their guidance on his way 
 home ; this shows that the conceptions of the Poet at least 
 were in the right direction. There is an amazing freshness in 
 the outpourings to their Creator of some of those far-off and 
 despised Pagans; they did not speak to cliques, or use con- 
 ventional tags, to suit the exacting ears of their fellow-creatures. 
 Even the Azteks addressed God in their Prayer, as "the Power, 
 " in whom they lived, omnipotent, omniscient, giver of all gifts, 
 " without whom man is nothing ; a Power, which is invisible, 
 " incorporeal, of perfect perfection, and purity, under whose 
 "wings repose and sure defence can be found" (Prescott : 
 Mexico, I, p. 52). 
 
 This is the Prayer of the Zoroastrians as recorded in the 
 Zend-Avesta : 
 
 " We worship the pure, the Lord of purity; we worship the
 
 ( 60 ) 
 
 " Universe of the true Spirit, visible, invisible, and all that 
 " sustains the welfare of the good Creator. We praise all good 
 " thoughts, all good works, all good deeds, which are and will 
 " be, and keep pure all that is good. We worship the Wise 
 " One, who formed and furthered the Spirit of Earth : we 
 " worship with our bodies, and our Souls." 
 
 Think of the Te Deums, and State Religious Services, which 
 took place after events, such as the Battle of Inkermann, 1854, 
 which both the Russians and Anglo-French claimed as a 
 victory. I remember the story of a pious Lady, interested in 
 Houses for the Poor, getting the late Lord Shaftesbury, myself, 
 and others to a Prayer-meeting, and proposing that we should 
 pray to God to influence the heart of a certain Royal Princess 
 not to place High Churchmen on the Committee of Manage- 
 ment. Lord Shaftesbury remonstrated : the request was too 
 strong even for him, and he made a compromise by agreeing to 
 call on the Princess, and influence her by Human argument, 
 instead of making use of the spiritual engine, proposed by the 
 Evangelical convener of the meeting. 
 
 The practice of the Buddhists in Tibet to set a prayer-wheel 
 going by placing it in a mill-stream, which turns round and 
 round the four sacred words, is often alluded to with derision : 
 it is forgotten, that the worshippers are on the lowest round 
 of intellectual culture : their motive was good ; their liturgical 
 apparatus was imperfect : but in the scale of measures taken by 
 poor man to approach the Infinite, is the Tibetan wheel so far 
 below the Litanies and Collects in a foreign tongue, the 
 " Dominus Vobiscum " of the Romish, and " Gospodi 
 Pomeloi " of the Russian, Church, the " fabricated " prayer of 
 the higher cultured Buddhist (Williams: Buddhist, p. 154). 
 On the other extreme, we come on the "agonizing in Prayer" at 
 Keswick, 1893 (Sunday at Home, Sept., 1893), the "Passionate 
 Prayer " of some Poems, the claiming of a sick child of God 
 in answer to Prayer by the Church Missionary Society's 
 Missionaries on the Niger, the specific Prayer of the simple- 
 hearted man, who prayed for £ 500 per annum, paid quarterly; 
 the suggestion of the Missionary Committee-man, that all the 
 organized Deputation-system should be dispensed with, and 
 that " the Secretaries should just go into the closet, shut to the 
 door, and pray for the exact sum required for the year's 
 expenses." To some aged people the repetition of Prayer is 
 a mere opus operatum : I have travelled with old Priests of 
 Rome in the train, and watched them working hard to read 
 their breviary amidst distracting conversation, and gladly 
 putting the book into their pocket, and looking out at the 
 scenery. This very year, 1894, we find an Archbishop praising 
 an aged clergyman, not for the number of Souls saved, or
 
 ( 61 ) 
 
 comforted, during an incumbency extending far beyond any 
 profitable use, but for another reason : " It was my happiness 
 " in my former Diocese to have among my clergy one aged 
 " man more than go, who never failed to say his daily office 
 " within his Church, even when there was no Congregation, 
 "or, as he happily expressed it, 'nobody but the Angels.'' 
 Would not these last have been present with him in his own 
 humble extempore ejaculations of penitence, prayer, and praise, 
 within his own chamber, without surplice, or scarf ? 
 
 Nothing is so soul-depressing as to think out this serious 
 subject. The servants in a great Nobleman's house are assembled 
 in a great Hall, jerked away from their domestic, or menial, 
 duties, by the clang of a bell : the groom leaves his horse only 
 partially rubbed down, the housemaid leaves her pail on the 
 stairs, the cook leaves her cooking in danger of being spoiled, 
 the ladies of the house drop the cosmetics and the paint-box, 
 the young men hurry down buttoning their waistcoats : a 
 miserable form of words is read by a Chaplain, who has ridden 
 over from the next village, a Chapter from the Bible is run 
 through, and the party disperse : opus operatum. 
 
 It is a sad truth, that the uneducated community is little, 
 in spiritual matters, above the beasts that perish; a portion of 
 the community has rarely any policy for themselves in anything, 
 they are totally devoid of personal originality. A Sanskrit Poet 
 describes this class as " gatanagatika," plodding on in the steps 
 of those that go before. They trust to their own particular 
 Newspaper for their politics ; to their lawyer for the safety of 
 their property ; to their doctor for the well-being of their vile 
 bodies ; and their particular minister for the safety of their 
 Immortal Souls. Many leave this latter detail quite out of the 
 sphere of their thoughts. 
 
 Cardinal Vaughan, when he founded St. Joseph's Foreign 
 Mission Society with a College at Mill Hill, Hampstead, in 
 t 868, wrote as follows, and his address has been republished 
 in i 894 : "The contribution of your Prayers is asked : this is a 
 " gift, which all are rich enough to make, and it is a gift of 
 " value, for I can assert, that every measure taken towards the 
 " establishment of this College has succeeded, when it has 
 " been supported, and furthered, by the Prayers of holy Souls : 
 " had I been inclined to doubt the value of Prayer, I should be 
 " worse than blind to doubt of its efficacy, after what I have 
 " witnessed of its power these past years " Now similar Prayers 
 go up week by week, day by day, from the Evangelical Section 
 of the Church, notably the Church Missionary Society, in whose 
 periodicals the Church of Rome, which Cardinal Vaughan 
 represents, is denounced. From U-Ganda, during the last two 
 or three years, two conflicting streams of Prayer, one in French,
 
 ( 62 ) 
 
 one in English, have been offered to the Throne of Grace, 
 accompanied by the dying cries of women and children, 
 slaughtered in an inter-Christian struggle to carry the Gospel 
 to the Natives of Central Africa. It must indeed make the 
 Angels weep. In December, 1894, we read how Cardinal 
 Vaughan has moved the Archbishop of Toledo to set the 
 prayer-wheel going in Spain, for the conversion of Great 
 Britain to the Pope : " Fiat experimentum in corpore vili." 
 
 6. Ritual. 
 
 The Religious Idea soon passed in all ages and places into 
 empty Ritual : it is one of the great sins of all Religions. The 
 Church of Rome delights in Temples, Bells, Music, Incense, 
 Processions, artful devices of the senses to deceive the vulgar: 
 then come Places of Refuge, or Sanctuaries for fugitive 
 criminals; Penance, or what the Hindu calls " tapas," Expia- 
 tion, Fasting, invoking blessing on animals, on slaves, about 
 to be exported from Africa to America (see Graphic, Aug. 19, 
 1893, p. 232), and a mass of folly. 
 
 The following speaks for itself: Dates of the consecration of 
 divers rites and institutions of the Romish Church: (1) holy 
 water, ad. 120; (2) penance, ad. 157; (3) monkhood, 
 a.d. 348; (4) Latin Mass, a.d. 394; (5) extreme unction, 
 a.d. 550; (6) invocation of Virgin and Saints, a.d. 715; (7) 
 kissing the Pope's toe, a.d. 809 ; (8) canonization of Saints, 
 a.d. 993; (9) baptizing of bells, a.d. iooo; (10) celibacy of 
 priests, a.d. 1015; (11) indulgences, a.d. 1 1 1 9 ; (12) Papal 
 dispensations, a.d. 1200; (13) elevation of the Host, a.d. 1200; 
 (14) the Inquisition, a.d. 1204; (15) auricular confession, 
 a.d. 1 2 1 5 ; (16) dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 
 A.d. 1853 '■> ( J 7) infallibility of the Pope, a.d. 1870. 
 
 The Hindu, and the Graeco-Roman Priests, were the pre- 
 cursors of, and the latter were the great examples to, the 
 Christian Churches. Bishop Westcott remarks (Cambridge 
 Companion to the Bible, 1893, p. 21), in his Essay on the 
 Sacred Books of pre-Christian Religions, that " Ritual in each 
 case has finally overpowered the stirrings after a personal, and 
 spiritual, fellowship with God," and without that Religion is 
 a mere farce. It was all very well for a Roman in the 
 Augustine age to pour out a libation to the gods : even the last 
 words of Socrates, "A cock to the god /Esculapius," sounds 
 sad to our ears : how far more ennobling were the two dying 
 sentences of Stephen, commending his Spirit to his Saviour, 
 and craving pardon for his murderers ! we seem to feel sure, 
 that Socrates had this feeling, but was unable to express it : 
 he had not learnt the terminology.
 
 ( 63 ) 
 
 What rational opinion can be formed of the decoration of 
 Churches beyond what is necessary for the convenient assembly 
 of worshippers, or a table at one end being called an altar, and 
 decorated with flowers, vessels, crosses, and crucifixes ? When 
 we read of the Pan Athenaic procession at Athens, and stand 
 in the ruined Temples at Pompeii, we cannot but feel, how very 
 Pagan are the so-called imitations of more advanced, and more 
 intelligent, ages: the very words "consecration of a brick 
 and mortar fabric" and " sacrilege" as applied to metal vessels 
 being stolen, have a Pagan smack about them. The Church 
 consists of the Souls of the congregation, brought together in 
 a decent suitable building set apart for the purpose, but always 
 liable to return to secular uses. In India the Roman Catholic 
 Church does not consecrate the building, but the altar, which 
 it can remove. What misery and loss of life have been caused 
 by the tendency of the followers of one Religious conception, 
 or of the Sect of one, to appropriate the buildings of another 
 Sect. We deem it, or at least many of us, an insult to 
 Christianity, that so many Christian Churches have been turned 
 into Mahometan Mosques, such as Sta. Sophia at Constanti- 
 nople, and the great Church at Damascus, itself once a Pagan 
 Temple ; but how many places of Worship have Christians 
 exultingly, and out of malice, annexed ! In India the 
 Mahometans annexed Hindu Temples, and in times of reaction 
 the Hindu annexed Mahometan Mosques, and fights took 
 place about bricks and mortar : the site of the Temple of 
 Solomon is still occupied by a Mahometan Mosque. Even in 
 London we have the sight of processions of members of the 
 Church of Rome filing into Westminster Abbey to worship at 
 the tomb of Edward the Confessor; and in Edinburgh the still 
 more strange sight of a Presbyterian congregation occupying 
 the Cathedral of St. Giles, so unsuitable to their simple form. 
 Instances of such appropriation occur all over the Northern 
 part of Europe. 
 
 And as regards Ritual, I have visited Troitska, one of the 
 most sacred shrines of the Greek Church, near Moscow. 
 Notwithstanding my considerable experience of the Ritualism of 
 that Church, I was at a loss to follow the meaning of all the 
 symbolism, but I have often stood in a Hindu Temple watching 
 similar Ritual, and I felt that some of my old friends the Pujari 
 Brahmins of Banaras would be quite at home, and in full 
 sympathy, with the bowings and genuflexions, and manipula- 
 tions, and the Gospodi Pomeloi of the Russian Papa. There 
 is a strong family likeness in all manifestations of Human folly, 
 and extravagant action. 
 
 In 1885 a sermon was preached by the lamented Dr. Hatch 
 of Oxford, whose Bampton-Lectures let in so much light into
 
 ( 64 ) 
 
 the origin of Ritual. One sentiment was remarkable : " All 
 scientific Truths had been denounced by Christians, as 
 Heresy, and the consequence was that, as knowledge 
 advanced, those, whose eyes were opened, regarded the 
 Religion, as presented to them, as a Cave of Adullam, in 
 which the collective weaknesses of mankind had taken 
 refuge, and that real Christianity had passed into a world of 
 shadows. That faith in Jesus, which had conquered the 
 world by its own innate Truth and greatness, was a simple 
 Creed, and that, which linked Christians together, was a 
 simple Brotherhood." 
 The consequence of the tendency to ornament places of 
 Worship with spoils taken from other countries, and other 
 places of Worship, renders so-called Sacrilege a common 
 offence : the plunder of sacred vessels, the robbery of jewels 
 and treasures from Sacristies, are loudly complained of: but 
 why are they there ? the spoil of plundered towns was dedicated 
 to a Deity, who had uttered the words, "Thou shalt not steal " : 
 men and women were murdered in the name of Him, who had 
 written, "Thou shalt not commit murder": the lands and 
 houses and vineyards of others were coveted, and taken 
 possession of by violence under the asserted guidance of Him, 
 who had written, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, 
 nor anything that is his." Attila and Genghiz Khan could not 
 be worse than were the Hebrews, and the Christian Kings 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 With regard to Penance, a strange Idea has occupied the 
 minds of ancient men, that physical pain purges away moral 
 evil. This has led to Asceticism in India, whereby a power was 
 obtained over the Deity, who was driven to practise unworthy 
 tricks to break the power of the Ascete. Penance is one of the 
 strange errors of the Romish Church. 
 
 If Ritual be kept within its legitimate limits, it matters not: 
 it is then but a desire to protect the Essence of Religion, and 
 to keep the thoughts from wandering, while engaged in 
 Worship. This is what is sometimes called a warm Service, as 
 opposed to the cold, haughty, attitude of the Mahometan, who 
 so many times a day bandies words with his Creator, like a Sentry 
 reports to his Commanding Officer. But those, the externals of 
 whose Worship is like the rind of the fruit, should be reminded, 
 that the Ritual of the Christian is but a copy of Jewish and 
 Pagan Originals. It is evident, that the Ritual of Moses owed 
 much to the Egyptian and Babylonian, or in other words to the 
 common germ of such developments, which is part of the outfit 
 of the Human Race. In course of time the Christian borrowed 
 from the Jewish, and the Roman, and Greek, Paganism around 
 him. No sooner did Christianity become Religio licita, than
 
 ( 65 ) 
 
 the same tendencies, which had displayed themselves in the 
 Pagans of South Europe, began to appear ; the notion prevailed, 
 that in order to captivate the multitude, all Worship of the 
 Deity needed to be surrounded with pomp and outward show. 
 The humble Christian Minister assumed the dress and name 
 of Sacerdos, and wore fine clothes. The upper room, or the 
 humble conventicle, was supplanted by the Basilica, which 
 rivalled the grandest of heathen temples ; processions, gold 
 and silver ornaments, incense, lighted tapers, and a grand Ritual, 
 recalled the ceremonial of the old gods of Rome. It never 
 occurred to that superstitious age, or to the present enlightened 
 one, that all this outward glory, however suitable to the 
 centuries before Anno Domini, and the Religious conceptions 
 of that Epoch, were totally repugnant to the new and spiritual 
 conception. The early Christians in their humble dwellings, 
 and places of Worship, did approach the Lord in Prayer, living 
 as He did in his earthly pilgrimage, but the allurements of 
 the flesh now obstruct, and render difficult, the approach to Him 
 in humility, Spirit, and Truth. 
 
 Could they have read clearer the page of History, and under- 
 stood the march of Human events, they might have acted 
 differently. The Palestinian Jew in the century preceding 
 Anno Domini, had fallen to the lowest level of empty Ritual. 
 The destruction of the Temple, and the cessation of the Mosaic 
 form of Worship, were at hand. In the meantime the Jew of 
 the Diaspora was supplying the leaven of progress to all the 
 Races and Nations, with whom he came into contact. He had 
 no Temple, no Priesthood, no Ritual, but he had a high Ideal, 
 and he was unconsciously preparing a platform in every city 
 of West Asia, North Africa, and Europe, on which the new 
 Religious conception could rest : the Kingdom of Israel, and 
 the old Jerusalem, were ready to disappear ; the shadow of the 
 Kingdom of God, and the new Jerusalem, fell on the slide of 
 the great Lantern of the Universe. Moses was read in every 
 Synagogue every Sabbath : a few years later Christ was to be 
 read also, for it may roughly be said that, where there was 
 a Synagogue, there would soon be a Church : Primitive Christi- 
 anity sprang up in a soil prepared by two or three centuries of 
 Hebrew culture. The Jew of the Diaspora, deprived of means 
 of access to the outward centre of his hereditary worship, 
 arrived at the conviction, that his call was to serve God in 
 a pure manner, and observe the principles of his Religion, since 
 he was hopelessly debarred from the Ritual. The Christian 
 Church absorbed too much Paganism in its essence to keep 
 clear of Ritual. With Ritual came dancing, music, ceremonies 
 attending the initiation, the feast of love, and the funeral, noise 
 made by bells, tam-tams, gongs. I have, in India, heard the
 
 ( 66 ) 
 
 followers of three different Religious conceptions, striving who 
 could make the most noise. The dancing of the Corybantes 
 has, in these last years, been renewed by the Salvation-Army 
 in the streets of London, as it is by the Dervishes in the Mosques 
 of Constantinople. On the paintings on the walls of Egyptian 
 tombs of vast antiquity we find, that the fools of that epoch 
 were doing just the same thing as the fools of this epoch, and 
 as David did before the Ark, rousing the derision of at least 
 one of the spectators. 
 
 The end is not yet: in The Times of 1894, I read how "the 
 " anniversary of the execution of the so-called Manchester- 
 " martyrs was celebrated in several of the principal towns of 
 " Ireland. There were processions, speeches, some approach 
 " to Religious ceremonies, and much decoration of Fenian 
 " graves." This recalls the processions in honour of the martyrs 
 of Kerbela, Hosan, and Hosein, in Mahometan countries, and 
 of Tammuz, in Syria, and of many a Saint in the Church of 
 Rome, notably the body of Xavier at Goa in West India. 
 
 The counting of beads is a form of Ritual, which the Chris- 
 tian Churches share with the Pagan. The Hindu repeats his 
 "Ram Ram," and the Roman Catholic his "Ave Maria," with 
 equal profit to his Soul. Every Tibetan has his Rosary 
 of 108 beads, that he may keep up the reckoning of his good 
 words, which to him supply the place of good deeds ; to this 
 day they place efficacy in vain repetitions. 
 
 Singularly enough sometimes the followers of one conception 
 in their intense ignorance practise the Ritual-tricks of a totally 
 distinct conception ; the lower class Maratha Hindu, who have 
 themselves rebelled against priestly domination very recently, 
 not only respect, but participate in, Mahometan Religious customs 
 in Poona. For instance, the majority of tazia (paper and wood 
 representations of the tomb of the two grandsons of Mahomet) 
 in the annual festival of the Mohurrum are made by the Maratha. 
 The tomb of a saint, Shah Dawal, near Poona, is worshipped 
 by the Maratha, who take goats, etc., as a Sacrifice to the saint 
 every week. 
 
 7. Priestcraft, Witchcraft, Exorcism. 
 
 Certain phenomena have been the bane of all Religious 
 conceptions, whether they appear in the degraded form of the 
 Shaman in Central Asia, or the Medicine-man in North 
 America. Islam is entirely free, at least, from Priestcraft, or 
 the lofty type of the Hindu Brahman, the Hebrew Priest, or the 
 Roman Catholic Cardinal. The instinct of these last leads them 
 to strive to keep the office either as hereditary, or as a close
 
 ( 67 ) 
 
 corporation ; to strive to keep all knowledge, secular or 
 Religious, in their hands ; to keep the laity in subjection by 
 trickery, by cajolery, by intimidation, by threatenings of 
 future punishment. Their best and their worst characteristics 
 co-operated to work out their purpose, and indeed they had to 
 secure the means of living in some way, especially after the 
 cessation of animal sacrifices diminished the supply of food 
 ready to be consumed by themselves and their families. 
 
 Sacerdotal pretensions have been, and continue to be, one 
 of the greatest social curses, that the world ever knew. Far 
 from encouraging Morality, or developing the Religious Idea, 
 it has generally the contrary effect ; and the enforcement of 
 a spiritual tyranny, such as Priests delight to exert, has a 
 decidedly immoral influence, destroying the independence of 
 the individual Soul before the Deity. 
 
 The exercise, or pretence to exercise, Magical Arts ; the 
 conceptions of Charms against the Evil Eye, Drawing of Lots, 
 Witchcraft, Incantation, are found everywhere. Sometimes 
 these powers are claimed by the regular Priesthood ; sometimes 
 by a rival set of impostors, who are denounced by the Priests, as 
 the Priests are by them. 
 
 The Hebrew Chroniclers notice an Ephod, which was 
 consulted by the Priests, on the occasion of there being a 
 doubt as to a policy to be assumed ; in fact, Abiathar, when 
 Nob was destroyed, went off with a view of helping David 
 (I Samuel, xxx, 7). On the other hand. Magical Arts, consulting 
 of familiar spirits, were forbidden. Saul asked counsel of a 
 familiar spirit, and the form of Samuel appeared to him, 
 and he inquired not of the Lord, therefore he slew him 
 (I Chronicles, x, 14). 
 
 Bishop John Selwyn writes : " In many islands no one of 
 " importance is deemed to die a natural death ; a cause of his 
 "illness must be sought, and that is Witchcraft; recourse is 
 " had to Divination in some form or another. The innocent 
 " inhabitant of some neighbouring village is pitched upon, as 
 " the offender, and is pursued with unrelenting hate." (Ramsden 
 Sermon, May 21, 1893.) 
 
 We find notice of the father of Khama, who was not only 
 the Chief, but the Sorcerer of his tribe, and in the last 
 capacity he had to study his Divination, and repeat his 
 Incantations, as often as Ma-Tabele inroads threatened. 
 
 We read in the Book of Numbers, how Balaam was sent for 
 by the king of the tribe to launch curses on the Hebrews, as they 
 approached his country. In fact, the practice in ancient time 
 was universal. 
 
 With regard to Priesthoods, there is none in China. The 
 official class do what is required, and the Emperor himself
 
 ( 68 ) 
 
 offers the Solstitial Service, not as Priest, but as King. Some 
 Religious conceptions have tried to exist without a clergy, 
 a class set apart for teaching, ministering, performing social 
 rites such as matrimony, funerals, initiations, but it has been 
 found, that a Ministry of some kind is as necessary to a Re- 
 ligious Worship, as a Schoolmaster to a School, or a Gardener 
 to a Garden. 
 
 The names of the forms of deception may be extended so as 
 to include Amulets, Sortilages, Omens, Ghosts, Philtres, hidden 
 forms of words such as Kabala, and Palmistry, which is still 
 practised in England, and is punishable as an attempt to de- 
 ceive Her Majesty's subjects. Some of these deceptions rose 
 even to the rank of Sciences, such as Astrology, Divination, in 
 times past. 
 
 8. Ceremonial Cleanness, or Uncleanness. 
 
 The distinction of clean and unclean can scarcely be defined, 
 or understood, in the Nineteenth Century, but it was the 
 characteristic of all priesthoods over the ancient world, and 
 rested in its origin on gross superstitions, the reason of which 
 is forgotten, though the practice remains. Religion thus 
 hardens down into ceremonial : some animals may be eaten, 
 some may not ; dead bodies, even of loved ones, were not to 
 be touched ; Caste grew from this in India, restricting 
 matrimony, and commensality. A very dirty man may be 
 deemed ceremonially clean, while a very clean man may be 
 voted ceremonially unclean. Drinking water in vessels, 
 touching articles, comes under that head : I remember the 
 Hindu driver of a Post-Office-cart refusing to blow a bugle, 
 which had been blown by a Mahometan. On one occasion 
 there was a trouble in the city of Banaras, and I arrested some 
 half a hundred, tied them all together with a rope, and sent 
 them to the gaol : it was hot weather, but a Brahman refused 
 to drink water, because there was a Christian prisoner tied by 
 the same rope, about ten men off him : he was left to his 
 thirst : the Greeks had it strongly eka? e/ca? oaris uXnpo?. The 
 division of the animal world into clean and unclean for reasons 
 quite unintelligible, such as cloven feet, or chewing the cud, 
 must be a survival of Totemism : it prevailed among the 
 Babylonians and Assyrians as well as among the Hebrews. All 
 Religions on some pretence or another forbid some article of 
 food : the Hebrews and Mahometans, for no obvious reason, 
 forbid the eating of swine's flesh ; the Hindu forbad the eating 
 of cow's flesh, and eggs ; the Sikhs forbad tobacco : and there 
 is generally a corresponding indulgence in something else ; for
 
 ( 69 ) 
 
 instance, tobacco being forbidden, the Sikhs take to opium. 
 One of the main objections to the crusade against opium in 
 India is, that the people deprived of their drug will take to 
 alcoholics of some sort, imported from Europe. 
 
 9. Fasting, Celibacy, Asceticism, Eremitism. 
 
 Under this head we find the same features everywhere, as 
 ridiculous, as useless for all spiritual advancement, engendering 
 Pharisaic pride, and laying aside the very objects of Human 
 existence : the more degraded the Religious conception, the 
 more we hear of abstaining from certain meats, or all meats, 
 forbidding matrimony, abandoning the ways of ordinary life, 
 and retiring as hermits into deserts or forests to spend life 
 in absolute uselessness, or to cluster in Monasteries in obedience 
 to self-imposed vows, pretending to higher sanctity, neglecting 
 the ordinary duties of men and women. There must be a 
 fascination for such things in certain minds : we find instances 
 of it among the Essenes, the hermits of Upper Egypt, the Brah- 
 manical Brahmacharya, and Sanyasi, and Yogi, the Buddhist, 
 the Jew, the Greek, Romish and Armenian, Coptic, and 
 Syriac, Monasteries. Such practices might have been tolerable, 
 and useful, in times of confusion, and unrule : they are in- 
 tolerable now. The Mahometans keep the Ramzan fast with 
 great regularity, and really put up with a great deal of suffering ; 
 the Roman Catholics have their jour maigre, but, as plenty 
 of fish and eggs is allowed, it is a mere name. We hear of 
 English Bishops dispensing by circular letters with fasts in 
 Lent, which seems in modern days to be taking unnecessary 
 trouble. Fasting is a mere survival : it may be very well for the 
 glutton, or one who fares sumptuously, but for the spare liver, 
 and advocate of temperance, it ranks among the works of supere- 
 rogation ; to the labouring man it would mean inability to work : 
 the wheels of the engine will not revolve, the fire in the hearth 
 will go out, if there be no supply of fuel ; the railway-engine, 
 without supply of water, will cease to work : to go without food 
 with a view of supplying the pressing need of a poorer brother 
 is the real fast. 
 
 An Oxford correspondent of The Times " carries back the 
 " practice of fasting-communion to the time of St. Basil 
 
 " (A.D. 380). 
 
 " But whence was a custom, apparently so alien to the circum- 
 " stances of the original institution, imported into the Christian 
 " Church ? Probably, like so many other novelties of Ritual and 
 " doctrine, introduced into the Catholic Church in the third, 
 " fourth, and fifth centuries, from a Pa^an source.
 
 ( 70 ) 
 
 " The initiated in the Greek mysteries at Eleusis, before they 
 " were allowed to drink of the mystic kvkcwi' and eat of the 
 " sacred cakes, were required to fast for a day (Hatch's Hibbert- 
 " Lectures, 1888, p. 298). 
 
 " It was not till the conquered Paganism had begun to take 
 " such dire revenge by imposing much of its own philosophy 
 " and its own ritual on the victorious Church, that the necessity 
 " of fasting-communion was taught by the Fathers. 
 
 " Were it not for the difficulty in these days of delicate 
 " organizations and diminishing endurance, of combining this 
 " practice, probably Pagan in its origin, with a late celebration 
 " of the Eucharist, it is plain, from the correspondence in public 
 " newspapers, that we should hear of no objections to evening 
 " communions." 
 
 We hear of a Mahometan in Egypt in 1894 venturing to 
 preach against Fasting in the Ramzan, as not being prescribed 
 by the Koran : it led to a fanatical outburst : the man was taken 
 to the Kazi, and received thirty strokes of the kurbash : this 
 seems an act of great intolerance : the real offence of the man 
 was his attempting to wound the feelings of others by his 
 conduct and words ; this no doubt was a punishable offence : 
 at any rate, Fasting should be voluntary. The Jew still practises 
 Fasting. 
 
 " Tuesday evening marked the beginning of the great Re- 
 " ligious day of the year in the Jewish Calendar, the Day of 
 " Atonement, and several thousands of English, German, Polish, 
 " and Russian, Jews attended at the Great Assembly Hall, Mile 
 " End Road, for its celebration. The day began at sunset, and 
 " the first service began at half-past five. The Fast is observed 
 " from dusk to dusk, and no adult Jew or Jewess is allowed to 
 " take any food or drink whatever during that period of time." 
 
 Penance to expiate sins committed comes under this 
 category : putting on sackcloth and a sad face. A remarkable 
 case is mentioned in Jonah, iii, 5 : The people of Nineveh, 
 Assyrians, seem to have known all about the way of conciliating 
 an offended Deity. The king sat in ashes, and even the cattle, 
 poor creatures ! were covered with sackcloth, and put upon 
 reduced diet. With the Hindu we read that the penance of 
 the body was to be chaste, of the mouth to speak always truth 
 and kindness, of the thoughts to control Self, purify the Soul, 
 to be silent, and disposed to benevolence. 
 
 Buddha was seven years practising extreme asceticism ; he 
 then reflected, that the extreme mortification of the body did not 
 bring him into the path of Perfect Knowledge. It struck him, 
 that a guitar too lightly strained gave a harsh sound, one not 
 strained enough gave no resonance, while a string moderately 
 strained gave forth sweet sounds ; so he determined to
 
 ( 71 ) 
 
 practise moderate asceticism : he sate in contemplation under 
 a tree, and ate food collected as alms sufficient to support 
 life : thus he arrived at True Knowledge, subduing of" the 
 Passions, Precepts of the eight-fold Noble Path leading to 
 the supreme God. 
 
 io. Feasting, Day of Rest. 
 
 Here all the old world, and great part of the modern world, 
 are on common ground, and wish to keep a day of Rest, or 
 Feasts, sometimes guided in their dates by the Revolution of 
 the Sun, sometimes of the Moon. Among the Semites the 
 day of Rest, called " Sabbath," can be traced through the 
 Phenicians to the Akkadians (Tiele, p. 84); with the Jews it 
 was deemed to be primeval, and the last day of the week, 
 Saturday ; with the Christians the first day of the week, Sunday ; 
 and with the Mahometans the last day but one of the week, 
 Friday. 
 
 We read in Greek and Latin Poets of the Feasts, which the 
 Seasons brought round, connected with their Deities. In India 
 there are special periods, extending over days and weeks. Paul 
 (Gal. iv, 17) alludes to the observance by the Jews and neo- 
 Christians of days, months, and years ; the Roman Catholic 
 Calendar is made up of days set apart, some to feasting, some 
 to fasting. There is a great and universal superstition as 
 regards times, places, persons, and seasons, which the Human 
 Race will never outlive, and which they transfer from one 
 Religion to another. Some days are lucky, some unlucky : the 
 Harvest Home with its decorations is but a remnant of 
 Paganism ; the gifts of the Earth have a beauty about them, 
 but, when a pig's head is offered at the Communion-Table, 
 the boundary seems to be passed, and yet herds of swine are 
 as much means of honest livelihood, and support of families, 
 as the more picturesque barn of corn, and vineyard. 
 
 11. Esoteric, or Exoteric. 
 
 I quote the words of a learned writer : " Last of the higher 
 " polytheisms, we may name that of Greece. Here, as 
 " elsewhere, we have an esoteric as well as an exoteric form of 
 " Religion, the former being ultimately embodied in what are 
 " known as the ' mysteries.' These, whatever they may at 
 " times have degenerated into, were, in their first intention, 
 " attempts to lead the Soul higher, ' the highest effort of 
 " Paganism to realize sacramental communion with Deity.' 
 " Thus, while many of the rites of the public Religion in
 
 ( 72 ) 
 
 " Greece were gross and degrading, this higher teaching rose 
 " to a far nobler level." 
 
 We seem to see the first germ of this two-fold exhibition of 
 the same conception in Mark, iv, 1 1, 34 : " Unto you it is given 
 to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them 
 that are without, all these things are done in parables " ; 
 " But without a parable spake He not unto them ; and when 
 they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples." 
 
 The Church of Rome in the dark ages made full use of this 
 principle : " It concentrated Church-Authority and power in 
 " the hands of the Clergy: but there was something worse and 
 " more deadly: it developed the Idea, that the Religion of the 
 " understanding, and of the head, was the prerogative of the 
 " few, that a Ritual of devotion, born of ignorance, was the duty 
 " incumbent on the many. Such a Church was not a Christian 
 " Church, but it ought to have some Christians in it." (The 
 Rev. Thomas Smith: Modern Missions, p. 238.) 
 
 But even in our own Protestant Churches, what do the School- 
 children understand of the Catechism, to which they reply, and 
 the prayers which they repeat ? Let it pass : their childhood 
 excuses them : they are being trained. What do the fathers 
 and mothers of families, and the hard-working adults, know of 
 the mysteries of Christianity ? They are simple, if received into 
 a simple heart, but when a rind of Human cares, vices, and 
 desires, is formed round that heart, how can they understand ? 
 What are the feelings of a rustic congregation looking at the 
 new painted window in memory of the Squire's wife ? can they 
 recognise in the bright blue, or red, or yellow, figures in the 
 glass the Saviour of the world, the carpenter of Nazareth, who 
 walked through Galilee as a humble peasant with no home, 
 and nothing of the world's greatness ? What authority have 
 we to suppose, that there will be crowns of gold, or sceptres, or 
 splendid robes in the next world, though the Author of the 
 Revelation seems to hint at it ? 
 
 Is there not, therefore, an esoteric and exoteric Doctrine to 
 this day ? a hazy conception on the part of the ignorant and 
 uncultured ? I quote the words of a competent student, if not 
 master, of this subject : 
 
 " To expect that Religion can ever be placed beyond the 
 " reach of scientific treatment, or of honest criticism, shows an 
 " utter misapprehension of the signs of the times, and the 
 " nature of the conception : it would after all be no more than 
 " setting up the private judgment of some against the private 
 "judgment of others: if the unalienable rights of private 
 " judgment of all were recognised, the character of Religious 
 " Controversy would be changed. Restriction provokes resent- 
 " ment, and embitters all discussions.
 
 ( 73 ) 
 
 " Religious intolerance is in some respects worse now than 
 formerly: the Indians recognised, that the Religion of the 
 young can never be quite the same as the Religion of the old, as 
 diversity of class, tastes, education, culture, occupation, and 
 training, must produce divergence in Religious thought. The 
 ignoring of this simple fact leads to hypocrisy on the one 
 side, and dogmatism on the other. 
 
 " I know how strong a feeling there is against anything like 
 a Religion for the few different from the Religion for the 
 many. An esoteric Religion seems to be one, that cannot 
 show itself, that is afraid of the light, that is, in fact, dis- 
 honest : but far from being dishonest the distinction between 
 a higher and lower form of Religion is actually the only 
 honest recognition of the realities of life. To a philosophic 
 man Religion is a Spiritual Love of God, and the joy of his 
 full consciousness of" the Spirit of God within him : but what 
 meaning can such words convey to Millions of Human 
 beings ? They nevertheless want a Religion, a positive 
 authoritative, revealed Religion, to teach them, that there is 
 a God, and that His commands must be obeyed without 
 questioning."
 
 ( 74 ) 
 
 CAP. III. MANIFESTATION OF SUCH A POWER. 
 
 i. Miracles. 
 
 2. Prophecies, Auguries, Ordeals. 
 
 3. National Sins and Punishments, Anger and Hostility of the 
 
 Deity. 
 
 4. Signs from Heaven. 
 
 5. Conception of Fate, Nemesis, 'Epiwvs. 
 
 1. Miracles. 
 
 In every country in the world down to the end of the 
 Nineteenth Century there has been a fond belief in Miracles. It 
 is so notorious, that no words are required. I have visited the 
 Romish Shrines of Lourdes, Zaragossa, Treves, Loretto, Rome, 
 Turin, Monte Serrato, near Barcelona, Einsiedeln, in Switzer- 
 land, and have no doubt, that it is believed, that the Mother 
 of Christ can work Miracles, and does so : it is significant, 
 that in Northern Europe, where the population is of a colder 
 temperament, and of relatively higher culture, no such mani- 
 festations are notified ; of course, in the elder days before the 
 great Anno Domini they were the common stock of every 
 Religious conception, The belief was very strong among the 
 Hebrews ; no instance of a Miracle performed by a Gentile 
 occurs in the New Testament, and the belief in them, only faint 
 in the Greek and Roman Church, is actually non-existent in 
 the Protestant Churches ; the unhappy Asiatic and African 
 Churches, which suffered so much under the Mahometans for 
 so many years, were never saved, or comforted, by miraculous 
 interference, though such help would have been at that time 
 most acceptable and opportune. Moreover, the Romish Church, 
 notwithstanding that it pretends to have such extraordinary 
 powers in reserve, never fails to lean on the Arm of the Flesh 
 of an Earthly Power. As a fact, the Saints never do supply 
 material help in the Mission-Field : a superstitious population of 
 half-an-half Christians is required to start a Miracle-performing 
 shrine ; not one exists in the British Dominions. Neither
 
 ( 75 ) 
 
 Buddhist, Confucianist, nor Zoroastrian, make any pretence to 
 miraculous power, and no instance of a Brahmanical Miracle 
 in India has occurred in the memory of man, or at least in my 
 experience ; the ordinary stock-forms, of raising from the dead, 
 healing the sick, providing food, helping believers to drive off 
 hostile invaders, are totally unknown. When an event has 
 happened a very long time ago, a very long way off, the im- 
 portant point for the Philosophic Historian is to find out, 
 whether it ever happened at all, or whether it was believed 
 to have happened by any, who had evidence to the fact, and 
 a faculty of recording it. We must recollect, that a great many 
 Miracles are reported to have taken place with a view of injuring 
 other people : a Court of Law would soon dispose of such cases. 
 Whatever fanatics may say, a Miracle could not co-exist with 
 a Public Press. 
 
 Mahomet, to his credit, never pretended to possess the power ; 
 he considered the Koran to be a Miracle, and as a literary work 
 it is of the highest merit : we cannot undertake to say by what 
 process Mahomet composed it, or received it when composed ; 
 we can only deal with it as we find it in Manuscript. Gautama 
 Buddha never claimed the power. 
 
 We come face to face with Miracles in all the Sacred Books 
 of the East : they were believed by honest, decent men of their 
 time, and were not put into circulation from corrupt motives. 
 We try to explain them by mistake of the copyist, or some 
 philological interpretation, or by allegory, or by a dense mis- 
 understanding of actual facts ; but it is all in vain. I must 
 painfully admit, that this idiosyncrasy belongs to all early Re- 
 ligious conceptions, and venture to assert that, unless atheists, 
 cynics, agnostics, and a fearless public opinion and public Press, 
 existed, they would come into existence again. It would be 
 urged by the Missionary, (i) that a great mass of mankind has 
 to be converted ; (2) that judicious Miracles would greatly assist 
 the process ; (3) that God loves mankind as much now as ever, 
 and does not wish any to perish ; (4) that God's power is not 
 limited ; (5) that fervent Prayer, and our Saviour's Promises, can 
 do much. Let us have evidence enough to satisfy a Common 
 
 J U T- 
 
 The Birth of Buddha is surrounded with Miracles, 600 B.C. : 
 all Nature was moved, the trees bowed down to him ; as a new- 
 born child he behaved in a manner totally unusual. 
 
 Stones bearing the impress of man's feet are shown at Ajodya 
 (Awadh) in India, at Hasan-Abdal, and on the Mount of 
 Olives. Rocks struck have given place to fountains at Hasan- 
 Abdal. Heavenly Leaders are reported to have suddenly 
 appeared in battle to help a particular cause. Pestilences have 
 been sent to destroy the armies of enemies. All this is the
 
 ( 76 ) 
 
 common stock of ignorant National Legends. Such kind of 
 things are never reported now. 
 
 It has been severely remarked, that Miracles have been the 
 bane of all forms of Religious conceptions; if once admitted for 
 a season, their possibility is calculated upon, and the vulgar 
 mind expects them to continue. The Church of Rome is 
 always logical: here is a notice under date September, 1890: 
 " The feast of the Nativity of the Virgin was celebrated to day 
 " by the issue of four decrees, declaring that due examination 
 " has confirmed the virtues of four deceased monks, and 
 " established the authenticity of Miracles, attributed to those 
 " personages : they are accordingly beatified." And so on to 
 the end of time. 
 
 There is no monopoly with Christians : in their ignorance, 
 they think that they only are thaumaturges, but " in the 
 " sixteenth century war was still waged on equal terms with 
 " the Mahometans. Both believed, that they were fighting for 
 " the cause of God ; both invoked His assistance. The 
 " Turkish Admiral managed to lull the wind, which favoured 
 " the Christian sails. Cardinal Ximenes, at the capture of 
 " Oran, managed by his prayers to stay the course of the Sun, 
 " until the Soldiers of the Cross were avenged of their Moorish 
 " enemies. Houris were lent out of Heaven waving green 
 " kerchiefs to lure the Ghazi to his martyrdom. St. James on 
 " his white horse was seen in mid-air by pious eyes, leading 
 " the charge of the Champions of the Cross." 
 
 The Khalifa Abdullah, successor of the Madhi at Khartum, 
 promised his troops the divine help of the beatified Mahdi, 
 and a certain victory. This is just what the Papist Missionaries 
 in Africa do to this day. A French Missionary writes to 
 the Missions Catholiques from U-Ganda, that his brother 
 Missionaries, who have died, have helped him by going among 
 the people. Now the Madhi, the Khalifa, and the Papist 
 Priests, were all holy, good men, constant in prayer, and ready 
 to sacrifice their lives in their cause, yet they lent themselves 
 to a lie. In the hands of dead Wahabi have been found 
 sealed Arabic papers, promising them a happy Paradise, with 
 a Pearl for a dwelling, and Houris to attend on them, if they 
 fell fighting the battle of Islam. 
 
 What shall be said of the Book of Tobit ? We read of an 
 evil Spirit, whose name is recognised in Zoroastrian legends, 
 who repeatedly killed the bridegroom of a girl on the wedding 
 night, and by the miraculous interference of the Archangel 
 Raphael, and the smell of a burning fish, fled away to the River 
 Euphrates. The ^Eneid of Virgil is full of Miracles, and inter- 
 ference of the Deity, spoken of historically, and to support 
 the argument of his Poem, not from any desire of lucre and
 
 ( 77 ) 
 
 power : it is a fair measure of the intellectual status of the 
 educated classes at a period just anterior to the great Anno 
 Domini. The monstrous miraculous vision, which Constantine 
 is supposed to have seen in the Heavens, marks the degradation 
 of thought three hundred years later: this, no doubt, is so entire 
 a fabrication, that Cardinal Newman, who swallowed so much, 
 could not accept it. In the Middle Ages it became the fashion 
 to give a material character to mere visions and dreams of holy 
 men; and a Miracle is reported, where nothing had occurred. 
 The Miracles at shrines are monstrous. At Zaragossa I found 
 that one man, who had his leg cut off by a scythe, through the 
 intercession of the Madonna of the Pilar had it fastened on 
 again, leaving only a red line as the mark of the adhesion. 
 
 Mr. Huxley remarks (Essays on Controverted Questions, 
 1892) " that no one is entitled to say a priori that : 
 
 " (1) A miraculous event is impossible, 
 
 " (2) Prayer for some ordinary change in the ordinary course 
 of Nature cannot possibly avail, 
 
 " because such a supposition is obviously contradicted by 
 " analogies furnished by every - day experience. But the 
 " arguments a posteriori against (1) Miracles, (2) efficacy of 
 " Prayer, are conclusive : the lack of evidence is fatal. The 
 " effect of Prayer, however, within the supplicator's mind is a 
 " very different question. Scientific Faith takes us no further 
 " than the Prayer, which Ajax offered, but that petition is 
 " continually granted." 
 
 Miraculous stories drift from country to country. A spider 
 spins his web over the mouth of the cave in which Mahomet 
 was concealed : the thing is not impossible for the spider to do, 
 but the impulse or motive of the spider is not proved. The 
 same story is told in the life of Felix of Nola, with the moral : 
 where Christ is with us, a spider's web becomes a wall to us ; 
 where Christ is not, a wall is a spider's web. 
 
 Miracles are asserted to have been performed of a malevolent 
 character: in the Catholic Missions, Jan., 1892, an English 
 paper, it is clearly stated, that many of those, who opposed the 
 Romish Missionaries, died soon afterwards : the inference is 
 obvious : to make such an assertion marks an unchristian 
 heart. Miracles are reported in connection with Apollonius of 
 Tyana, who died about 97 a.d., and was not a Christian. 
 
 A thoughtful writer remarks, that " Miracles form part of the 
 " furniture of all Religions in a particular stage of develop- 
 " ment : given a certain habit of thought, a certain crisis of 
 " spiritual urgency, a Miracle is sure to make its appearance, in 
 " the same way as hysterical excitement accompanies fanati- 
 " cism, whether Cybelic, or Bacchic. It is much more a form
 
 ( 78 ) 
 
 " of popular belief than of conscious importance ; it is the 
 " people's way of acknowledging the presence of God, while 
 " the devotee of Science recognises Him in inexorable Law, 
 " and unbroken Order." (Hibbert-Lectures, 1883, p. 365.) 
 
 It is asserted in a general way, that the Miraculous Power 
 is dead, and that Prophecy is silent : we will not argue whether 
 these two mysterious Agencies are more dead and silent now 
 than they were in ages that are past, and a stage of culture, or 
 rather non-culture, that can hardly be realized. The Jewish 
 type of the Phenomenon exists no more. But we live in a 
 period of real world-Miracles, for God still displays His power 
 by His acts, and in a period of world-Prophecy, for God still 
 speaks to our consciences, and in our little span of life we can 
 see traces of His insurpassable Wisdom. How little the 
 Hebrew knew of His Miraculous Power in ordering the affairs 
 of the Human Race, of His Wisdom in planning and maintain- 
 ing the great Kosmos, of His Love to the Bodies and Souls of 
 His poor children, compared to what we know now, when our 
 Bodies are temples of His Holy Spirit, and our lives in the very 
 presence of Christ, the object of our gratitude and hope. 
 The great Creator has allowed mankind by His so-called Science 
 to pierce, generation after generation, deeper and deeper into 
 the secrets of His Great Creation, and maintenance of the great 
 round world, and find out some new element of His Power 
 previously unrevealed, track the course of a Planet, which has 
 been revolving for myriads of years, but has only come within 
 our limited form of vision during the present century, and 
 develop some phase of His Almighty Plan, which has remained 
 concealed from the Beginning. The Interpretation of Nature 
 is the unveiling of God. 
 
 Nor is the discovery of the untruthfulness of legends of 
 Miracles a new feature ; there always were some, who were not 
 deceived. Livy, who died just before Anno Domini, writes thus : 
 
 " Romce aut circa urbem, multa ea. hyeme prodigia facta, 
 " quod evenire solet ; motis in religionem animis multa et 
 " nunciata, et temer6 credita sunt." 
 
 Belief in Miracles ceases, when Education, and the knowledge 
 of the laws of Nature, become diffused through a population, 
 and whatever may have been the case in former centuries, they 
 are now the outcome of a deliberate fraud. If at any period of 
 their long existence the Hebrew Race were in need of Prophecy 
 and Miracles, it is now, and yet none is vouchsafed. 
 
 In 1843 I was present on the occasion of the liquefaction of 
 the blood of St. Januarius in the Cathedral of Naples : by 
 favour of the Clergy I got very near the ostensorium, and saw 
 the dark lump gradually melt into red blood : it was a trick 
 worthy of a Conjuror, and very well exhibited. In Brittany
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 they are less liberal to strangers. There was an arch-saint in 
 the place, St. Yves, who was patron of the town, and who, if 
 prayed to with fervour, would obligingly kill a man's enemy 
 for him within a twelvemonth by sudden illness. This good 
 saint, or rather his wooden presentment, stretched out his arms 
 once a year to bless the people of Treguier, but it was in- 
 dispensable to the acccomplishment of this Miracle that the 
 whole congregation should fix their gaze on the ground. If a 
 single unbeliever raised his eyes to see, if the arms were really 
 lifted, the saint, "justly incensed by such a want of faith, 
 would refuse to perform," and, of course, the unbeliever had 
 to face the wrath of his infuriated fellow-townsmen, who had 
 been defrauded of their blessing. 
 
 2. Prophecies, Auguries, Ordeals. 
 
 This is a well-known feature of past ages and former 
 Religions: as a fact, the Idea has died out: the public Press, 
 and public Conscience, would not tolerate the existence of a 
 Prophecy, which was not properly fulfilled, and in the plain 
 sense of the word, and as was intended by the Prophet. In 
 Virgil's ./Eneid there are two very pretty Prophecies in the early 
 books, which are fulfilled in the later: there must be no doubt 
 now as to the date, on which the Prophecy was promulgated : 
 those, recorded by Virgil, and in other books, are Prophecies 
 after the event. Shakespeare allows himself to predict, that 
 Queen Elizabeth would die unmarried : his play of Henry VIII 
 was written after her death : it is a mere license of Poetry. 
 Seneca made a lucky Prophecy as to the discovery of America ; 
 the Poet Horace predicted that his charming poetry would be 
 read hereafter all over the world ; the Mother of Christ 
 predicted that all Nations would call her blessed ; Isaiah 
 predicted, that the knowledge of the Lord would cover the 
 Earth as the waters cover the Sea : all these utterances have 
 become strictly true : they were looking into a dim and remote 
 future, and there can be no doubt about the material fulfilment 
 of their predictions, except as to a small part of the round 
 world. 
 
 But attempts have been made in all ages, and countries, to 
 ascertain the near and impending future, and Religion generally 
 has been the machine made use of: we come into contact with 
 a miscellaneous horde : Soothsayers, inquirers of God, Augurs, 
 Diviners, Watchers of the course of Birds, Vaticinators, 
 Examiners of entrails of Animals, Interpreters of Omens, 
 Interpreters of Dreams, Professional Cursers, Professional 
 Blessers, Tellers of Lucky Days, Fortune-tellers by the palm
 
 ( 80 ) 
 
 of the hand, Oracles, such as Delphi, Dodona, Astrologers, 
 Finders out of Lucky Days. The words " liars, and deceivers 
 of mankind," may apply to all such, and they have totally 
 disappeared, and it is difficult to understand, how the Hebrew 
 Nation could have lent itself to such practices seriously after 
 their experience of the scene, which took place in the presence 
 of Ahab, and Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles, xviii, 21, 22). The 
 Augurs were exposed in a memorable passage of Cicero : the 
 Oracles, after being very dubious and facing both ways, at last 
 became dumb : if any Sovereign were to ask to have his dreams 
 interpreted, he would be overwhelmed with ridicule : Professors 
 of Palmistry are sent to prison : Lucky Days, and Omens, are 
 only spoken of as a kind of joke. 
 
 The practice of " inquiring of the Lord," either directly, or 
 by an ephod, is painfully frequent in the Hebrew Historical 
 Books : it indicates the low state of intellectual culture of that 
 Nation : it is difficult to say by what channel the answer came: 
 as it is stated now, it reads as if Saul had a telephonic 
 communication : it is noteworthy that Hezekiah and Josiah 
 had no such communications. The first line of Newton's 
 hymn does not come under this category : " I asked the Lord," 
 etc. : this refers to a spiritual communication betwixt the Soul 
 of a man and his Creator on a matter affecting his Soul, not 
 regarding mundane matters. 
 
 The magnificent prophecy of Virgil in the JEneid regarding 
 the birth and early death of young Marcellus, indicates the 
 liberty, which Poets were allowed to take with Truth, and 
 how highly such efforts were commended. The same Poet 
 would make us believe, that ^Eneas was supported in his troubles 
 by the sure word of Prophecy. He puts words also in the 
 mouth of Dido, predicting the triumphant career of the Cartha- 
 ginian General, Hannibal, as avenging her wrongs : it is very 
 charming to read, and it gives us an idea of the feelings on that 
 subject of the elder world. Horace puts similar hopeful words 
 in the mouth of Teucer, when seeking a new country, but 
 all this w r as long after the fact : the principle may be laid down, 
 that, unless you are sure of the date of the death of the Prophet, 
 and its authenticity, it is nothing worth. The uncertainty of the 
 date of the Book of Daniel, now relegated to the time of 
 the Maccabees, destroys his prophetic reputation. 
 
 The new Pythagoreans, a school totally independent of the 
 Hebrews, though coming into existence in Alexandria, thirsted 
 for Prophecies, Oracles, and Signs, and thus gave an expression 
 to the longing prevalent in the Western World, just before 
 Anno Domini, for a supernatural revelation of the Divine Will. 
 The Fourth Eclogue of Virgil is but one evidence of a fact, 
 which we must take count of, for it is patent. Tacitus,
 
 ( 81 ) 
 
 Suetonius, and Josephus, record that there was a wide-spread 
 belief that some one coming from the East would rule the 
 world : they considered the prediction fulfilled in the return 
 of the General Vespasian from Jerusalem to be made Emperor: 
 they attributed the rebellion of the Jews to their misinterpre- 
 tation of this rumour in the appearance of their promised 
 Messiah. The Christians took, and still take, a third view. 
 At the time of the Mutinies, 1857, there was current a Prophecy 
 that a king, named Dulip, would conquer Delhi : as a fact, the 
 Sikh soldiers did help materially the conquest : I myself had 
 heard of this rumour before the Mutinies. From time to time, 
 through the length and breadth of British India, a particular 
 Prophetic Message is announced, more especially in times 
 of political trouble. Jordanus, a Monk of the order of the 
 Dominicans, reports in his book, Mirabilia Descripta, 1430 ad., 
 the Prophecy current among the people of India, that the Latins 
 would subjugate the world. Prophecy, in fact, represents an 
 apprehension. There was nothing foreign to the feelings of the 
 age, or of reasonable probability, in the facts recorded in 
 the Acts of the Apostles : (1) that a famine should be predicted, 
 is a fact of annual occurrence in India, as common as that the 
 hay-crop has failed in England-; (2) that a man in the circum- 
 stances of Paul should run the chance of imprisonment, after 
 what he had been doing in Asia Minor and Greece, required no 
 great strength of Prophecy. In the time of the great upheaval 
 of Religious conceptions, when Mithra, Serapis, Bona Dea, 
 were all mingling in the confusion, Divination of all kinds was 
 to be expected. Tertullian tells us, that his world was crowded 
 with Oracles, second sight-seers, fortune-tellers. At an earlier 
 period Plato doubted, and Aristotle remarked, that it was not 
 easy to despise, such predictions, or to believe in them. Cicero 
 has left his opinion in his Essay, " De Divinatione." Porphyry 
 thought, that the only sure Religion was in direct communi- 
 cation from the gods, and wrote a book on the Philosophy 
 to be drawn from Oracles. There was always on the lips 
 of men the Prophecy, and in the hearts of men, a firm belief, 
 that God was wont to warn beforehand, when great misfortunes 
 were to happen to a City or Nation. This marks the great 
 intellectual gulf between the Past and the Present. 
 In a fragment of Euripides we read : 
 
 " He is the best prophet who guesses best." 
 
 (Ramage, p. 158.) 
 
 We read how the King of Israel blamed a Prophet for always 
 prophesying things unfavourable to him ; he must have believed, 
 that the Prophet could say what he liked. 
 
 6
 
 ( 82 ) 
 
 Assur-bani-pal, in one of his Inscriptions after the conquest 
 of Babylon, writes : " In accordance with Prophecies, I cleared 
 " the mercy-seats of their temples ; I purified their chief places 
 " of Prayer; I appeased their gods with penitential Psalms ; I 
 " restored their daily Sacrifice." (Sayce: Monuments, p. 460.) 
 
 Orpheus thus describes the Prophet : 
 
 1 a 6 eovra, 
 oaocne TrpoaOev erjv, oaa c eooejai ucrepov aiiQis, 
 
 which centuries later Virgil rendered (JEn. iv, 392) : 
 
 " Novit namque omnia vatis, 
 " Qua? sint, quae fuerint, quae mox ventura trahantur." 
 
 The Editors of Newspapers, the occupiers of Pulpits and 
 Missionary platforms, are often exceedingly prophetic without 
 the restraining qualifications of a Vatis, an accurate knowledge 
 of the present, and any knowledge of the past. 
 
 In the Expository Times of 1894 appeared a paper entitled 
 " Hebrew Prophecy and Modern Criticism," and a critic has 
 recorded the following remarks on this paper : " Why it has 
 " this important character will best appear from a summary of 
 " its contents, which we will give as accurately as possible. 
 " Starting from the fact, that this is an age of unparalleled 
 " mental activity, indicated by the increasing demand for 
 " education, and the changed character of it in itself, he passes 
 " on to the consideration of the effects, which this of necessity 
 " must have on Theology. We must, therefore, translate the thought 
 " of Religion into the best thought of our day. It follows that 
 " theological methods are undergoing complete change. This 
 " is evident both in apologetics, and the exegesis of prophetic 
 " writings. The old method was, first, to assume a certain 
 *' number of facts about the Bible, and then to study it with 
 " this tinderstanding; the modern does not necessarily accept, 
 " or reject, any of these assumptions, but it does not allow 
 " them to prejudice the study of Scripture. Thus it becomes 
 " of obvious importance, that we should ascertain, in what 
 " ways Biblical criticism affects our view of the character of 
 " Prophecy, and its value as a branch of Religious evidences. 
 "It would appear that 'the tendency of modern exegesis 
 " obviously affects the argument from Prophecy in two impor- 
 " tant respects: (1) It often shows, that what were previously 
 " considered to be predictions of future events fulfilled within 
 " the period of Jewish history, were in all probability no predic- 
 " tions at all. (2) It makes it equally clear, that what were 
 " believed to be simple predictions of a distant future, have 
 " their most natural explanation in the historical events of their 
 " own lime.' "
 
 ( 83 ) 
 
 The Apolline Oracle of Delphi was a mighty Power, ever on 
 the side of Morality, bringing home to men's minds the notion 
 of Right and Wrong, of Reward and Punishment : its predictions 
 as to futurity were couched in ambiguous language ; its opinion 
 as to Right and Wrong was unhesitating. Thoughtful men, 
 calling themselves Christians of the Nineteenth Century, must 
 be cautious ere they laugh at the Greek Oracles, which lasted so 
 many centuries, and died from their own exhaustion, not from 
 foreign conquest: they had lived through all the Greek Epochs, 
 from the most barbarous, and elementary, to the most polished 
 forms of Human development; they had no life in themselves, 
 and died. The Christian Historian, who refers their power to 
 illusion, or imposture, forges a weapon against his own Religious 
 conception. He, who believes in an all-wise Providence, and 
 the efficacy of Prayer, must recollect, that in doing so he accepts 
 the principle, which formed the basis of ancient Divination. 
 We each and all believe, that our bodies are temples of the 
 Holy Spirit, and that we lend ourselves to the influence of that 
 Spirit in answer to Prayer in the discharge of our every-day 
 duties, and in the vicissitudes of life : we believe that an answer 
 is conveyed to us : the Oracles did no more. 
 
 " The last utterance of the Pythian Priestess was a kind 
 " of whisper of desolation in reply to the inquiry of the 
 "Emperor Julian: the last fragment of Greek Poetry, which 
 " has moved the hearts of men, the last Greek hexameters, 
 " which retain the ancient cadence, the majestic melancholy 
 " flow : 
 
 eiTrme rw /3a<ri\rji, X a l Llal ""6<re c/itca\o<? av\a' 
 ovkcti fI>6</3os e^ei KaXvfiav, ov/iavriha baxjivrfv, 
 ov irayav XaXeovoav" aireafieTo kci'i \d\oi> uSwp." 
 
 {Myers' Essays, p. 101.) 
 
 What is a miraculous vision ? " A mistaking of subjective im- 
 pression for outward revelation." Voices are rarely, if ever, 
 heard by two persons : the Holy Spirit still speaks to the Soul 
 in words, which cannot be uttered. 
 
 We read in Homer (Iliad, II, 93; Odyssey, III, 215) of a voice, 
 or rumour, which runs Heaven-sent through multitudes of men, 
 and is deemed the voice of Jupiter: oaaa, (prj/xrf, /cXrjcwv, o«p/; 
 (Myers' Essays, p. 13). 
 
 The Etruscans had three ways of discovering the will of the 
 gods: (1) thunder and lightning, (2) the flight of birds, which 
 they believed was under Divine guidance, and for a purpose, 
 (3) examination of the entrails of animals offered in Sacrifice. 
 The interpretation of these signs rested with a body of arrogant 
 men, who pretended to have an intimate acquaintance with tiie
 
 ( 84 ) 
 
 Will of Heaven, and decrees of Fate (Canon Rawlinson's Religion 
 of Ancient World, p. 192). We find a survival of this arrogant 
 presumption of knowledge of God's dealings in Missionary 
 Society Reports, where such phrases occur as "their work 
 being owned by God" ; "God's manifest guidance." The theory 
 of Augury was this : the Stoics held that the gods, out of their 
 goodness, had impressed on the nature of things certain marks, 
 and notices of future events ; such as on entrails of beasts, the 
 flight of birds, thunder, and other celestial signs, which by long 
 observation, and the experience of ages, were reduced to an art, 
 and applied to the events, which were signified by it. Cicero 
 was of opinion, that the original institution of Augury was from 
 a persuasion of its divinity, and that, though by the advance- 
 ment of knowledge, that opinion was outgrown, still it 
 ought to be retained for the sake of its use to the Republic. 
 This is the sin of many modern forms and institutions ; they 
 are retained, because they are useful, though known to be false. 
 
 The Augurs were possessed especially of the sacred lore 
 connected with birds, who gave omens in three ways : flight, 
 note, manner of eating their food : they had a system of 
 interpretation for all phenomena: nothing could be done by 
 the Roman State without consulting them. The right of 
 consulting the will of the gods belonged to the Kings, and 
 in republican days to the Consuls or Magistrates: they controlled 
 the operation : the Augurs were referred to for the interpretation 
 (Middleton : Cicero, p. 506). So long as this control was 
 maintained by a strong Government, order could be preserved : 
 we see the contrary in the petty Kingdom of Judah, where 
 the Prophet became an incendiary : no Government could have 
 been carried on under the conditions described in the Prophecies 
 of Isaiah and Jeremiah : we have only to imagine Preachers, or 
 itinerant Prophets, going about, and uttering denunciations 
 of the Powers that be, and asserting Divine knowledge : we 
 can see what a change had come over men's minds at the Epoch 
 of the Anno Domini, when Paul recommends submission to 
 Civil Authority : how were the poor people to know whether 
 the Prophets were true or false ? Jeremiah (x, 24, 25), though 
 admitting that Jehovah was Lord of the world, could not under- 
 stand why He was so kind to the Gentiles : he calls out to 
 Jehovah to "pour out His fury on the heathen, that know Thee 
 not, and the families that call not on Thy name " : yet all were 
 God's poor children, living by His favour, who hateth nothing 
 that He hath made : in fact, the violent fanatical Journals of 
 modern time are the only analogues of the utterances of the 
 Prophets, who rendered all Civil Government impossible, and 
 brought on the ruin of Judea. 
 
 In private life we have still in the Nineteenth Century
 
 ( 85 ) 
 
 revivals of Superstition : unlucky days, bad omens, banshee- 
 cries, tea-leaves in cups, thirteen at dinner: such was it at 
 Rome also. The beautiful lines of Tibullus occur to me : 
 
 " Oh ! quoties ingressus iter, mihi tristia dixi 
 " Offensum in porta signa dedisse pedem. 
 # * * * # * * 
 
 " Delia non usquam, quae me quam mittat ab urbe 
 " Dicitur ante omnes consuluisse Deos." 
 
 In Xenophon's Anabasis, III, 2-9, we read how " 'irrapvinai Tts," 
 " somebody sneezed." Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates, and 
 yet he expresses an opinion, that it was a favourable augury 
 from Jupiter. In India, when a person in power sneezes, his 
 attendants snap their fingers ; in England a sneeze is generally 
 accompanied by the exclamation of " God bless you ! " 
 
 Ordeals are a further development of the same notions : they 
 prevail in Africa still to discover witches in a cruel and 
 abominable form ; in India, in an innocent form, to discover 
 petty thefts, such as chewing of rice, throwing of mud, passing 
 the hand over a table covered with ink. 
 
 I read in Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, p. 267, the following, 
 as regards the Egyptian belief: 
 
 " Sometimes in the dark the Statues in the Temples raised 
 "their voices, and announced their will, or made gestures: 
 " when they were consulted, and made no sign, this meant 
 " disapprobation; if they bowed their heads once or twice, this 
 " showed, that they approved : no State-affair was settled 
 " without consulting them." In fact, the crafty Rulers made 
 this excuse to get time for deliberation on any matters. 
 
 3. National Sins and Punishments, Anger and Hostility 
 
 of the Deity. 
 
 This feeling is clearly evidenced in the Religions of the elder 
 world. The individuality of man face to face with his Creator 
 was not apprehended ; men were thought of as flocks of sheep, 
 differentiated by colour of skin, Language, shape of skull and 
 body, and political institutions, but answerable collectively for 
 each other, and one generation for former generations. The 
 Mahometan has gone to the other extreme, and deals with his 
 Creator as an individual : the whole world may perish, but he 
 will be saved by his Faith. There are Christian Sects, who 
 practise the same unchristian Individualism. A Plymouth 
 Sister, being asked, whether she thought, that she and her sister
 
 ( 86 ) 
 
 were the only persons, who by God's mercy would be saved, at 
 once replied, that she was not sure of her sister's salvation. 
 The Latin Poet Horace plaintively remarks: 
 
 " Delicta majorum immeritus lues, 
 " Romane, donee templa refeceris, 
 " yEdesque labentes Deorum" ; 
 
 and the general feeling of Pagan Rome was, that the Empire 
 was being ruined by the neglect of the Worship of the Roman 
 gods, who had made her great. It is notorious how salient a 
 feature this was in the Jewish History. Ahab's grandchildren 
 had to suffer for his sins : our fathers sinned ; we were 
 punished. Manasseh's sins were not purged even by his 
 own death, but the consequences were carried on to his son 
 Josiah. The poor sheep had three days pestilence because 
 David made a census of his little tribe, and no punishment 
 seems to follow our Indian census of 287 Millions. Ezekiel 
 tried to soften down the hardness of the original decree, 
 that children should suffer for the sins of their parents ; 
 Plutarch, Isocrates, Solon, and Herodotus, seem to echo 
 the same sentiments. The compiler of the Chronicles, 
 who lived some time after the return from the Captivity, seems 
 to have outgrown this feeling to a certain extent ; the solidarity 
 of Sinners is no longer a dogma. 
 
 Even in Great Britain, at the end of the Nineteenth Century, 
 with a House of Commons comprising Atheists, Mahometans, 
 Parsi, men devoid of any Religious element, by the side of a 
 confused body of Religious Sectarians, we hear the cuckoo-cry 
 of National Sins. Sometimes the Indo-Chinese Opium-Trade 
 is so described, while the drunkenness of our population, and the 
 unblushing profligacy of our streets, the slaughter of poor 
 African barbarians in the interest of Missions, Commerce in 
 Alcoholic Liquors, Colonization, and unblushing annexation, is 
 omitted. What National Sin can be greater than the slaughter, 
 confiscation of private property, and political annexation, in 
 Ma-Tabeleland in South Africa by a Chartered Company for 
 the sake of gold-dust in 1894? 
 
 Montefiore, in his Hibbert-Lecture on the Origin and Growth 
 of Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, remarks, p. 515 : 
 
 " The feeling of commercial integrity was consistent, and even 
 " co-existent, with a sense of Human responsibility as towards 
 " God ; but the same word was used by the Hebrews to express 
 " both iniquity and its penalty. When they and Israel were 
 " afflicted, they tended to feel sinful ; when they and Israel 
 " were prosperous, they tended to feel righteous." 
 
 Another feature, which was universal, was the anger of the
 
 ( 87 ) 
 
 Deity. Virgil tells us how Juno persistently persecuted ^Eneas, 
 the supposed founder of the Roman Race. The Poet expresses 
 a pious astonishment : 
 
 "tantsene animis caelestibus iras ! " 
 
 Apollo sent disease into the Greek camp, because the daughter 
 of one of his priests had been carried off by Achilles. He took 
 umbrage, because the followers of Ulysses captured some of 
 his cattle, and killed them. So-called sacrilege was severely 
 punished, even though the offender had erred without know- 
 ledge : worse than Anger, Envy is imputed to the Deity : 
 Niobe's children were killed, only because the mother's pride 
 of them offended Apollo and Diana. Can it be possible, that 
 sensible people, who were far advanced beyond barbarism, 
 could have believed such things ? It marks a frightful degrada- 
 tion of the Religious Idea to attribute Disease or Death to the 
 anger or jealousy of the Deity, and not to His Loving Wisdom ; 
 still more shocking is it, that Historians should impute to the 
 Deity's interference the death of the enemies of the party, 
 which they support. Lucretius soars above these idle notions 
 (Book I, v. 61): 
 
 " Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri, 
 Nee bene promeritis capitur, nee tangitur ira." 
 
 The Jewish Chronicles are not free from this strange obliquity 
 of vision: it is sad to read (I Chronicles, xiii, 10), that Uzza, 
 who put forth his hand to hold the Ark, when the oxen stumbled, 
 raised the anger of the Lord, "and He smote him . . . and 
 he died " ; and in other passages, the Anger and Jealousy of 
 the Deity are alluded to. So imperfect was the conception of 
 the Hebrew Chronicler of the Deity. 
 
 What an imperfect Idea they could have had of Sin ? In 
 I Samuel, xiv, 34, I read : 
 
 "Sin not against the Lord in eating with the blood" \ they 
 killed their neighbouring tribes by the scores, seized their 
 land, plundered their cattle, burnt their houses, enslaved their 
 females : this was apparently no Sin. They killed women and 
 children ; when Achan stole a Babylonian garment, not only 
 was he killed, but the Hebrews killed his wife and children 
 also. Then the awful phrase occurs frequently, that the Deity 
 sold His people into the hands of their enemies: it seems 
 impossible to conceive such things of the Deity, even in a 
 moment of suffering ; but to record such phrases centuries after- 
 wards for the teaching of the people, seems to pass beyond all 
 comprehension. We read in Kings how Jehu slaughtered, in
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 the most deliberate and treacherous way, the Royal children of 
 Ahab, the Royal children of the Kings of Judah only coming 
 on a visit, the Priests of Baal : nothing but praise was heaped 
 upon him for such dastardly conduct. 
 
 When the pious Jews of the time of Jeremiah were denouncing 
 Idolatry in their own Nation and the Heathen, they were un- 
 wittingly falling into as great a theological error as those, whom 
 they denounced : they believed, that Disease and Death were the 
 chastisements of the offended Deity on those who would not 
 recognise Him. So Horace writes, HI, ii, 31, Odes: 
 
 " Raro antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede Poena claudo." 
 
 In the Psalms we find devout men forgetting charity so far as 
 to pray God to punish their enemies : they chose to suppose, that 
 they knew the secrets of God, and that all, who did not believe 
 with them, were in the wrong, and justly visited by punish- 
 ment : their theory was unjust and cruel. 
 
 4. Signs from Heaven. 
 
 Nothing appears so often in pre-Christian Religions, or in 
 mistaken views of the precepts of Christianity, than the 
 connection of the Religious conception with phenomena of 
 Nature, such as Thunder and Lightning, Rain and Storm, 
 Eclipses, Earthquakes, Eruptions, Wells of Naphtha, and with 
 the incidents of Human Life, such as Accidents, Sickness, 
 Death by what is called Visitation of God : such phenomena 
 and incidents are attributed to the Deity to mark His favour to 
 the so-called good, and His aversion to the so-called evil. 
 
 In Him we live and move and have our being ; He is about 
 our path and about our bed, but Sickness and Death are 
 blessings in disguise, for " He giveth His beloved sleep," and 
 " Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." The pages of the 
 Greek and Latin secular and Religious writers furnish endless 
 instances of the feeling, that thunder and lightning contain a 
 message from the Deity, that sudden death, such as that of 
 Ananias and Sapphira, and Arius, were punishments. Only 
 this year, during a strike at Hull, the manager of a firm was 
 struck by paralysis and death, and the strikers attributed it to 
 a visitation of God. In Bangal the appearance of a Comet 
 heralded a disaster : the poor agriculturists anticipated a dearth 
 and famine ; the corn-dealer could not consider a famine a 
 misfortune, and thought that the Comet indicated something else. 
 
 In India grants used to be made by the British Government
 
 ( 89 ) 
 
 to the Brahmans, and Mahometan officials, to pray for Rain : 
 this was stopped. In Great Britain the custom seems still to 
 prevail, though contrary to all reason. A light crop of grain in 
 South Russia is a great blessing to the people of India. A 
 short crop of cotton in the Southern States, owing to want of 
 Rain, makes the fortune of other countries. 
 
 The Jews were not free from this delusion, as we read in 
 Samuel of the Lord sending thunder to discomfort the 
 Philistines, and sending thunder and rain at time of harvest 
 with a view of confirming the power of Samuel. 
 
 An eclipse of the Sun or Moon in India is still an event 
 of solemn importance : the Greek Historian tells us how 
 combatants engaged in battle left off fighting on account 
 of an eclipse. Earthquakes and eruptions were deemed 
 messages from the Deity. Hailstones are described as falling 
 on an enemy during a fight, and killing more than fell by the 
 sword. The arrest of the Sun and Moon in their progress 
 to help on a greater slaughter can scarcely be seriously treated, 
 for as the Sun never moves, there was no occasion to arrest 
 its progress: this is one of the stories, the survival of which 
 is to be regretted, and, as a fact, is only a quotation from 
 a book, of which nothing is known, and which can scarcely 
 claim to be inspired. 
 
 Lucretius, who wrote before Anno Domini, remarks that the 
 gods often destroyed their own temples with lightnings. 
 Professor Sayce writes, Hibbert-Lectures, p. 300 : " The pro- 
 " phetic voice of Heaven was heard in thunder by Accadians, 
 " as well as by Semites : the sounds of Nature were to them 
 " a Divine message : the roar of the ocean was an oracle ; 
 " subterranean noises were messages from Hades." 
 
 Only within the last few years I read in a Missionary Report 
 how in South India a Missionary pointed out to a Hindu the 
 inferiority of the Deity, whom he worshipped, who could not 
 protect his own temple from being destroyed by lightning? 
 Have the steeples of Christian Churches never been struck 
 by lightning ? To doubt that thunder was the voice of God 
 seemed impious. y£neas is described by Virgil as seeing in 
 Tartarus a certain King, named Salmoneus, who was undergoing 
 punishment for the following reason : 
 
 " Demens ! qui nimbos, et non imitabile fulmen 
 yLre, et cornipedum cursu, simularat equorum." 
 
 {/Eneid, VI, 590.) 
 
 The utter ignorance in ancient time of the physical world, 
 and their inability to explain what they saw by natural causes, 
 and the pre-occupation of their minds with the paramount
 
 ( 90 ) 
 
 importance of their own private, tribal, or National, affairs, led 
 poor weak men to imagine, that the Stars, the Planets, the 
 Comets, Rainbows, Eclipses, fire falling from Heaven, had no 
 other object but to benefit or injure them, or their neighbours, 
 or their enemies. A sign from Heaven was a thing demanded, 
 as a voucher of authority, or a proof of innocence. It is difficult 
 to bring the mind to the standpoint, whence such things were 
 possible: they were part of the stock-in-trade of the Prophet, 
 and the Augur. With such wonderful allies how utterly 
 kings, and great men, failed in what they had to do ! In 
 II Chronicles, vii, i it is narrated how fire came down and 
 consumed the burnt - offering : the Chronicler lived about 
 six hundred years after this event, which took place in a 
 totally illiterate and exceedingly credulous age. 
 
 We read in the Kings, that the Sun went back on the Dial 
 of Ahaz to assure Hezekiah of the truth of Isaiah's message. 
 The Pharisees demanded of Christ a sign from Heaven as a 
 voucher for His authority, for even at that late period the world 
 had not outgrown the old notions. In Latin Poets we read . 
 
 " Sol tibi signa dabit : Solem quis dicere falsum 
 
 " Audeat ? ille etiam cascos intrare tumultus 
 
 " Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella." 
 
 The eclipse of stars was supposed to portend a change of 
 the flourishing condition of Carthage. (Justin, XXII, 6.) 
 In Ovid's Metamorphoses, XV, 782, 
 
 " Signa tamen luctus dant haud incerta futuri : 
 
 " Solis quoque tristis imago 
 " Lurida sollicitis praebebat lumina terris." 
 
 5. Conception of Fate, Nemesis, 'Epiwm. 
 
 In elder days there was a strong feeling of this kind, and 
 to a certain extent a salutary feeling. The Mahometan bears 
 ills patiently, because he says that it is his " kismat." In 
 Christian Poetry mourners are consoled by allusion to the 
 common lot: "Sic voluere Parcae " settled the matter. Still 
 more important in restraining the hand of violence and injustice 
 was Nemesis, or "At*;, the displeasure of the Deity at something 
 that was wrong, and the power of the 'Epiwvs, or Fury, 
 to whom was committed the punishment of criminals by exciting 
 the tortures of conscience. We have a grand instance of this 
 in the tale of Orestes. Nothing could justify matricide : an 
 erring mother must fall by some other hand than that of her
 
 ( 91 ) 
 
 son : but the existence of such feelings, or convictions, argue 
 a state of mental culture above that of the savage or barbarian. 
 King Mtesa, of U-Ganda, ordered one of his wives to be led 
 out and killed for some petty offence, and his conscience was 
 not troubled. So on the Niger a man killed his Mother, because 
 her conduct was vexatious to him, and felt no compunction, 
 and had no 'Epiwvs after him ; in fact, he could not see that 
 he had done wrong any more than a brute beast. It might 
 be well if individuals, and especially those in Power, had the 
 thought of Nemesis, and 'Epiwvs, more before their eyes, as 
 the lookers-on see so many instances of sorrow following sin 
 with unerring certainty.
 
 ( 92 ) 
 
 CAP. IV. EARLY HUMAN PRACTICES AND NOTIONS. 
 
 i. Disposal of Dead. 
 
 2. Eschatology. 
 
 3. Mutilation or Disfigurement of Body. 
 
 4. Strange and Abominable Customs. 
 
 1. Disposal of Dead. 
 
 In no other quarter is there such a variety of customs, as in 
 the disposal of the dead, but always under a Religious 
 sanction : the Egyptian embalmed, and enveloped the departed 
 in a mummy ; the Etruscan laid him away in a rock tomb, with 
 all his mortal comforts around him ; the Jews buried ; the 
 Greek, and Roman, and Indian, burnt; the followers of 
 Zoroaster exposed the body to the birds to be devoured. More 
 barbarous Races packed them up, and stowed them in the roof 
 of their houses, or on frame-works of wood prepared to receive 
 them. If civilized Nations have hitherto preferred burying, 
 they have for the future to confront the difficulty of finding 
 space for the ever-increasing cemeteries. However different the 
 practice, the reason for the practice is always attributed to 
 Religion, and is somehow or another connected with the 
 Resurrection of the body, though it is obvious, that in a very 
 short time after sepulture in the ground the body is consumed, 
 nor does the precaution of the rich in embalming, and placing 
 in leaden coffins, arrest the progress of decay. 
 
 The urgent necessity of funeral rites of some kind is 
 evidenced by passages in the Sixth Book of the ^Eneid, which 
 describe the sad state of the Souls of those, whose bodies have 
 not been properly disposed of after death. In China to this day 
 the Spirits of the dead, who have not been honoured properly 
 in death, become a trouble and curse to their survivors. In the 
 lower classes in Europe there is a strong feeling on the subject. 
 Tobit in the Apocrypha seemed to make a merit before God 
 to have buried the bodies of his countrymen, when he found 
 them.
 
 ( 93 ) 
 
 We remark in the Greek Authors, that the idea of a body 
 being left unburied, and not properly mourned, was deemed 
 sad and terrible : 
 
 " <}\\' apa TOi^ye icvvesre, kcu oiwuoi, KmeCa^jrav 
 " Kei'iievop fcV 7re()lw eVa? ucttco?, ovce Are t<9 fieu 
 " ickavaev 'A^aua^wi/' fiaka <yap jae<-{a fujaaro eipyov. 
 
 (Homer: Od., Ill, 258.) 
 
 We find traces of this in the Tragedians : Orestes in Iphigenia 
 in Aulis deplores that there will be no sister to perform the 
 usual rites to his body: Iphigenia, being warned in a dream, 
 that Orestes was dead, proceeded to perform the usual rites, 
 though absent. 
 
 The echo of the same sentiment comes to us in the Latin 
 Poets : 
 
 " Non hie mihi mater, 
 " Qua? legat in teneros ossa perusta sinus ; 
 " Non soror, Assyrios cineri quag dedat honores, 
 " Et neat effusis ante sepulchra comis." 
 
 (TlBULLUS.) 
 
 Perhaps, after all, Cremation, and collecting the remnants 
 in a vase labelled with the name of the deceased, is the 
 most sanitary method, and most conducive to respect for the 
 departed. When I stood lately beside the Mummy of Rameses II 
 at Cairo, the Pharaoh of the Hebrew oppression, it occurred 
 to me, that it would have been better for his poor remains, 
 had they been burnt at the time of his death : so in modern 
 time Earth to Earth in a simple wooden coffin is better 
 than the leaden receptacle. The New Guinea - custom is 
 certainly the nastiest, where the body of the Grandmother laid 
 up in the roof of the single room is permitted to decay, and 
 drip down over the persons of her descendants. A traveller, 
 while writing in his journal in a hut, found the paper of his note- 
 book soiled by this ancestral rain. 
 
 Custom, no doubt not distinct from Religion, in some cases 
 urges the stronger to put an end to the lives of the weaker: 
 I have already disposed of Human Sacrifice. Cannibalism is 
 credited with three causes: (0 want of animal food. Where 
 there are plenty of goats there is no occasion to eat men ; in 
 India the wolves creep into the inclosure and carry off infants, 
 but, where there are plenty of goats, they prefer kid-flesh : 
 (2) the second cause is the desire to add to the greatness of 
 the triumph, and to the horror of the enemy in his dying 
 moments : (3) if the slain is distinguished for bravery, or
 
 ( 94 ) 
 
 strength, it is hoped by eating him to get a portion of his 
 physical gifts : an English Governor of a West African Colony 
 was eaten with that view. 
 
 In the eleventh volume of Gibbon's " Decline and Fall " I read, 
 how the Germans many centuries ago had no scruple in 
 bringing the life of their parents to a close, if they lived too 
 long. In India a Religious motive is added : until made 
 punishable by British law, pious children would take their aged 
 relatives down the ghats of Banaras, fill their mouths with mud, 
 and push them off into the Ganges, with a sure and certain 
 hope of eternal bliss for them. In Sumatra, which is not a 
 Realm of Law, annually all the old and infirm, when there is 
 abundance of lemons, are gathered together, and placed on the 
 branches of the trees, under the shadow of which there are large 
 vessels full of water: the branches are shaken by the younger 
 members of the family, while they sing: "when the fruit is 
 ripe, then it will fall," and the old bodies fall into the vessels, 
 are cooked, and eaten, just as years ago they had eaten their 
 own parents. 
 
 Sometimes in Europe the way of disposing of the dead 
 seems strange. In Naples there are 365 deep wells: one 
 is opened each day, and the dead are thrown into it, and it is 
 fastened up for one year. In some Monasteries, at Palermo 
 and Rome, the dead Monks are still visible in their Monkish 
 dress, sad and loathsome objects. In Austria the remains of the 
 Imperial dead are divided : the body goes into a lead-coffin, 
 the heart into a separate lead-heart-box, and the brain is 
 disposed of elsewhere. In England I have been down into 
 family vaults, and found myself in the midst of dead ancestors, 
 or connections : some coffins were standing upright ; one lady, 
 who died in foreign parts, came home in a leaden coffin fitting 
 like a riding habit. The sexton, like a ghost, was quite at home 
 amidst his charges, and handed to me the coffin of a baby, who 
 had died in the reign of Charles II, which had a little shelf of 
 its own ; above the vault was the Family Pew, from which one 
 by one the living representatives of the old Race were taken 
 down to join the general rendezvous below. 
 
 All this should cease, and the remains of the dead should be 
 consigned to Holy Earth, or Holy Fire, and disappear. 
 
 2. ESCHATOLOGY. 
 
 The Egyptian " Book of the Dead " reveals to us the 
 conceptions of that Nation of life beyond the grave. Homer 
 and Virgil conduct the reader into the Elysian Fields. The 
 Brahmanical and Buddhist substitute the Doctrine of Trans-
 
 ( 95 ) 
 
 migration of Souls in an endless chain, until non-existence is 
 gained. The Red Indian expects, that his dog will accompany 
 him to another world ; the African Chief goes to the grave, 
 accompanied by slaughtered wives and slaves, who will make 
 him comfortable in his new abode ; so also was it with Attila and 
 his Huns. The Hebrews alone up to the time of the return 
 from Exile had no consolation for the woes of this world beyond 
 the grave : the hope held out was, that their days might be long 
 in the land given ; and even up to Anno Domini, and beyond, 
 when Paul addressed the Sanhedrin, the question of a Future 
 State was allowed to remain an open one. If Moses were 
 learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, it is wonderful 
 to think, that he was not acquainted with Egyptian Eschatology ; 
 had he been so, he would hardly have been silent on the 
 subject, for the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were 
 descended through the wife of Joseph from an Egyptian 
 Priest, and must have had Egyptian relatives, and heard of 
 the Mummies, the Book of the Dead, and the popular senti- 
 ment, evidenced by the Pyramids and the Catacombs. 
 
 I quote the condensed expression of an esteemed Author : 
 We cannot hope to understand the dogma of the Resurrection 
 of Christ without bearing in mind the theories of the Jews, 
 and early Christians, concerning the structure of the world, and 
 the cosmic localities of departed souls. Since the time of 
 Copernicus modern Christians no longer attempt to locate 
 Heaven and Hell ; they are conceived of merely as mysterious 
 places remote from the earth. The theological Universe no 
 longer corresponds to that, which physical Science presents 
 for our contemplation. To the Jews the Universe was like a 
 sort of three-storied house : the flat earth rested on the water, 
 and under its surface was Sheol, where the souls of all went, 
 righteous as well as wicked ; a land peopled with flitting 
 shadows, suffering no torment, but experiencing no pleasure. 
 Sheol is the first story ; the earth is the second ; above was a 
 firmament, and above that Heaven, where Jehovah reigned. 
 Two only of the Human Race had been admitted to the third 
 story. Sheol was the destined abode of all after death ; all 
 rewards and punishments known to the early Hebrew Writers 
 before the Captivity were earthly. According to the new 
 Doctrine, the Messiah was to free the righteous from Sheol 
 and cause them to ascend in new bodies, while the wicked 
 were to be punished : this doctrine was Pharisaic : the 
 Sadducees rejected it to the last. Paul grasped the deep 
 significance, and it became the kernel of the new Idea; some- 
 thing more than a mere intellectual assent was required ; there 
 must be an emotional striving after righteousness, a developing 
 conscience of God in the soul, a subjugation of the flesh to the
 
 ( 96 ) 
 
 Spirit. It was to this new Idea, spiritually set forth, that the 
 new Religion owed in great part its rapid success, for it met the 
 requirements both of Jew and Gentile. When Saul made 
 use of a woman with a familiar spirit to bring up Samuel 
 (I Samuel, xxviii, 15), the deceased is reported to have said: 
 
 " Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up ? 
 
 to-morrow shall thou and thy sons be with me " : he meant that, 
 whether good or bad, all men went to Sheol. More than 
 a thousand years afterwards Paul wrote as follows : " If there 
 " be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen .... 
 " for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised .... then 
 " they also which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished ; 
 " if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all 
 " men most miserable" (I Corinthians, xv, 13-19). 
 
 The comparison of the sentiments of these two holy men, 
 Samuel and Paul, who spoke according to Ideas of their Epoch, 
 indicate the vast change, which had taken place in the eschato- 
 logical conceptions. 
 
 It appears to some (Dale : North American Review, April, 
 1893), that, in spite of all the alleged physical difficulties, there 
 must be a future state, because an adequate purpose is required 
 for the Universe. Of what good is all the beautiful order, if it 
 worked out nothing but death ? Besides, Hope is an essential 
 to mankind, and this can only co-exist when Life, not Death, is 
 the destiny of Man. It is incredible, that the lives of good 
 men should utterly perish, and that so much suffering should be 
 endured by those who deserve it not, if there be no hereafter 
 compensation : we have, however, no certain knowledge ; no 
 one ever came back from the dead to tell us, nor, if they had 
 told us, should we understand, for our knowledge is limited to 
 our earthly requirements and experiences. It is impossible to 
 realize what union with God hereafter may mean, unless we 
 have some faint Idea of what is union with Him in this world. 
 It is impossible to say whether personal memory of things of 
 the world, of beloved ones, will survive ; those, who have known 
 God best here, and felt His reality here, will find Him there 
 also. It is impossible to conceive what becomes of poor 
 savages, and the ignorant, of children who die in infancy, of 
 idols and lunatics who are scarcely, or not at all, conscious 
 of a personal identity, for after all the evidence must be 
 spiritual, not physical. 
 
 In common conversation, or even in Religious teaching, there 
 is great vagueness : some people entrust dying people with 
 messages to their loved ones ; some believe, that the dead 
 are still cognizant of what takes place on earth ; some 
 enthusiasts elevate poor dead ones to the rank of a demi-god, 
 and invest them with Spiritual power. The Hebrew Idea of
 
 ( 97 ) 
 
 Sheol, and the Gragco-Latin Idea of Hades, were most shadowy ; 
 the use of the word Hell, for instance, in the Creed, is most 
 unwarrantably applied. Poetry has taken great liberties : take 
 for instance Longfellow's beautiful poem on the death of his 
 daughter ; Dante's three great poems are monuments of the 
 strange mediaeval conceptions, more than half Pagan, of 
 the future State. Such books as " Letters from Heaven," and 
 " Letters from Hell," and many other attempts to lift up the 
 curtain, indicate how great is the uncertainty of the Human 
 mind. And yet the subject is spoken of by votaries of all 
 Religions with certainty: a Brahmin speaks of his dead friend 
 as baikunth-bash, "dweller in Heaven" ; so does a Mahometan 
 as bihisht-manzal ; the Church of Rome imagines, that by Masses 
 and prayers it can modify, and improve, the position of a 
 departed Soul ; the sensational Evangelical talks and writes 
 of his dear one, as already in Heaven, ignoring the caution 
 of Paul, I Thess. iv, 13-15. Such poems as "Saints in 
 Paradise" are familiar to us all. 
 
 Once in India in my office some papers were read to me 
 in one of the Vernaculars of Northern India. I remarked on 
 the use of two or three expressions, to imply Death, and the 
 following day one of the officials brought me a list of between 
 thirty and forty terms in Persian, Urdu, and Hindi, for expressing 
 the fact: some exceedingly expressive, some needlessly unkind 
 to the dead. Being a great reader of Evangelical periodicals 
 and books, it occurred to me to collect the terms sentimental, 
 emotional, sensational, used to record the death of Missionaries, 
 or others, in whom friends were interested : 
 
 1. Entered into glory. 
 
 2. Called home. 
 
 3. Went to see the King. 
 
 4. Went no more out. 
 
 5. Mr. Spurgeon entered Paradise this morning at 4 p.m. 
 
 (telegram). 
 
 6. My Mother is in Heaven. 
 
 7. The Lord took him home. 
 
 8. He passed to see the King. 
 
 9. He fell asleep in Jesus. 
 
 10. He was called up higher. 
 
 1 1. He was called to higher service. 
 
 12. Her Spirit fled. 
 
 13. She passed through the gate into the city. 
 
 14. He promised to follow his wife to Heaven. 
 
 15. She rests from her labours till the day dawns. 
 
 16. She passed away, absent from the body, present with 
 
 the Lord.
 
 ( 98 ) 
 
 i~j. She went from the far East to Paradise. 
 
 1 8. Gathered home from the Missionary harvest. 
 
 19. Has gone to be with Christ. 
 
 20. He passed away. 
 
 21. Her Spirit departed like a child falling asleep. 
 
 22. The departure of a servant of Christ. 
 
 23. Is with the Lord. 
 
 24. His sun has set. 
 
 25. Entered into rest. 
 
 26. Started on his journey. 
 
 27. Passed across the borderland. 
 
 28. She saw the Sun set on the other side. 
 
 29. My dead husband has one child with him to keep him 
 
 company. 
 
 30. All those have long been in Paradise. 
 
 31. God called him home to a better country. 
 
 32. She passed from death unto life. 
 
 33. Called to leave the great harvest-field. 
 
 Whatever may be said to the contrary, the doctrine of Rewards 
 and Punishments in a future state, though absolutely ignored by 
 the Hebrews, appears from evidence beyond doubt, to have been 
 believed by the Egyptian, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Greek, and Roman : 
 the echo of the same strain is caught up elsewhere : the oral 
 legends of the North American Indians, and of the Polynesian 
 and Melanesian Islanders, tell the same story. It is, indeed, 
 part of the Spiritual outfit of the Human Race. It is difficult, 
 indeed, to arrive at the standpoint, whence the opposite doctrine 
 was susceptible of argument, for it has been well said that " it 
 seems to be the spontaneous outcome of the Human mind, 
 when brought face to face with the mystery of Death" (Max 
 Miiller: Gifford-Lectures, 1892 — Theosophy, p. 231). 
 
 Travellers and Residents among barbarous tribes have 
 systematically inquired: (1) What was their view of the world 
 of Spirits? (2) How do they speak of the Soul after separa- 
 tion from the body ? (3) Where does the Soul go to after death ? 
 (4) Do Spirits appear on earth, where, how, and by what name 
 called? (5) Do they influence the lives of the living for good, 
 or for bad ? The Idea of the bliss of Heaven varied with the 
 climate, customs, and habits, of each Nation : the Northerner 
 looked forward to unlimited drinking of ale; the Mahometan 
 to an abundance of female companions, but no liquors. Kong- 
 Fu-Tsee gives no explicit utterance on the state of man after 
 death : he held that, though disembodied, he somehow or other 
 continued to live on (Legge's Religion of China, p. 1 12). 
 
 The transmigration of the Soul to another body is asserted by
 
 ( 99 ) 
 
 a great many, both in Asia and Europe. (Rhys Davids : Hibbert- 
 Lectures, pp. 75, 90 ; Tyler's Primitive Culture, vol. ii. pp. 4-1 1.) 
 The Idea of the Hindu may be gathered from the following 
 poetic rendering of a passage of the Vishnu Purana : 
 
 Maitreya (the pupil). 
 
 " Parasura, you've told me 
 
 " All that I wished to hear, 
 " How out of chaos sprung this 
 
 " God-made hemisphere. 
 
 " How zone on zone, and sphere on sphere, 
 
 " In ever-varying forms 
 " The wondrous egg of Brahma 
 
 " With living creatures swarms. 
 
 "All great and small, all small and great, 
 
 " On their own acts depend : 
 "All their terrestrial vanities 
 
 " In punishment must end. 
 
 " Released from Yama they are born 
 
 " As men, as beasts, again, 
 " And thus in countless circles still 
 
 " Revolving they remain. 
 
 " Tell me, oh ! tell me, what I ask, 
 
 " What you alone can tell : 
 " By what acts only mortal men 
 
 " Can free themselves from Hell ? " 
 
 Parasura (the teacher). 
 
 " Listen, Maitreya, best of men : 
 " The question you have brought 
 
 " Was once by royal Nakula 
 " Of aged Bhisma sought. 
 
 " And thus the hoary sage replied 
 " Listen, my Prince, this tale 
 
 " A Brahman guest once told me 
 " From far Kalinga's vale.
 
 ( ioo ) 
 
 " He from an ancient Muni too 
 " The wondrous secret gained, 
 
 " In whose clear mind of former births 
 " The memory remained. 
 
 " Never before had human ear 
 " The tale mysterious heard : 
 
 " Such as it was I tell it you, 
 " Repeating word for word. 
 
 " As from the coil of mortal birth 
 
 " Released the Muni lay, 
 " He heard the awful King of Death 
 
 " Thus to his menials say : 
 
 " ' Touch not I charge thee, anyone, 
 " ' Whom Vishnu has let loose ; 
 
 " ' On Madhu-sudan's followers 
 " ' Cast not the fatal noose. 
 
 " ' Brahma appointed me to rule 
 " ' Poor erring mortals' fate, 
 
 " ' Of evil and uncertain good 
 " ' The balance regulate. 
 
 " ' But he, who chooses Vishnu 
 
 " ' As spiritual guide, 
 " ' Slave of a mightier lord than me, 
 
 " ' Can spurn me in my pride. 
 
 " 'As gold is of one substance still, 
 " ' Assume what form it can, 
 
 " ' So Vishnu is the self-same power, 
 " 'As Beast, as God, or Man. 
 
 " 'And as the drops of watery spray, 
 " ' Raised by the wind on high, 
 
 " ' Sink slowly down again to earth, 
 " ' When calm pervades the sky, 
 
 " ' So particles of source divine 
 
 " ' Created forms contain : 
 " ' When that disturbance is composed, 
 
 " ' They reunite again.'
 
 ( ioi ) 
 
 " ' But tell us, Master,' they replied, 
 " ' How shall thy slaves descry 
 
 " ' Those, who with heart and soul upon 
 " ' The mighty Lord rely ? ' 
 
 " ' O ! they are those, who truly love 
 " ' Their neighbours, them you'll know, 
 
 " ' Who never from their duty swerve, 
 " ' And would not hurt their foe. 
 
 " ' Whose hearts are undefiled 
 
 " ' By soil of Kali's age, 
 " ' Who let not others' hoarded wealth 
 
 " ' Their envious thoughts engage. 
 
 " ' No more can Vishnu there abide, 
 
 " ' Where evil passions sway, 
 " ' Than glowing heat of fire reside 
 
 " ' In the moon's cooling rav. 
 
 " ' But those, who covet others' wealth, 
 " ' Whose hearts are hard in sin, 
 
 " 'And those, whose low degraded souls 
 " ' Pride rampant reigns within ; 
 
 " ' Whoever with the wicked sit, 
 
 " ' And daily frauds prepare, 
 " ' Who duties to their friends forget : 
 
 " ' Vishnu has nothing there.' 
 
 " Such were the orders, that the King 
 
 " Of Hell his servants gave : 
 " For Vishnu his true followers 
 
 " From death itself can save." 
 
 (Robert N. Ccst : 
 Panda, Aug. 1853. Poems of I\Iany Years and Places, p. ..) 
 
 But some admit a future state, but make no mention of future 
 Rewards and Punishments. On the Egyptian monuments we 
 read, that Osiris is to be the Judge of the Quick and the Dead 
 at the time of the Day of Account : the dead are brought before 
 the Judge, himself clad in mummy-clothes, as having himself 
 risen from the dead ; those, who are acquitted, are united to
 
 ( 102 ) 
 
 the Lord, and become one with Him. We are not much nearer 
 the solution of the riddle of Human life than was the Egyptian : 
 he laid his dear ones in their rocky tomb sixty centuries ago with 
 the same sorrow, and received no reply, no whisper of what 
 happened to them ; he looked out on the course of the Sun, 
 and the flow of the great River, and the return of the Seasons, 
 and we gather from the Inscriptions, that he prayed for more 
 light, as we do at this day. 
 
 The Egyptian Idea was of this kind : 
 
 Man was composed of four different entities, each having its 
 separate life and function : 
 
 (1) The body, which was embalmed, so that for ages it would 
 
 not suffer decomposition. 
 
 (2) The "ka," or "double," was saved from extinction by 
 
 prayer and offerings. 
 
 (3) The " bi," or " ba," or Soul, saved in the same way. 
 
 (4) The "khoo," the "lumm," a spark from the fire down in 
 
 the Soul. 
 
 The "ka" never left the place, where the Mummy reposed; 
 the "bi" and the "khoo" went forth to follow the gods, per- 
 petually returning like travellers to their home ; the mortal 
 dwelling was only a wayside inn ; the tomb was the eternal 
 home, and was built solidly to meet this requirement ; in it 
 was the room, where the Mummy was ; there was also the 
 private room of the Soul, which could not be visited ; and the 
 reception room of the " ka," to which friends brought offerings; 
 the two rooms were connected by a passage. 
 
 Hades, in Babylonian legends, is a gloomy realm, a land of 
 forgetfulness, and darkness, where the good and evil deeds are 
 remembered no more; its occupants are mere shadows of men, 
 who once existed, very much as described in the Poems of 
 Homer and Virgil, except that there were Rewards and Punish- 
 ments in the Grseco-Roman conceptions, which were undreamt 
 of by the Babylonians. All moral responsibility ended with 
 death : good or bad, heroes or serfs, were all condemned to 
 a dreary lot ; the Spirits of the dead flit about in darkness with 
 dust and mud for their food and drink. (Sayce : Religion of 
 Babylonia, p. 364.) 
 
 ^Eschylus has no hope of assured happiness beyond the 
 grave ; he was a contemporary of the Jews of the Exile : they 
 had none either : it would have been a reply to Job's questions, 
 if they had known it: but to them the fulness of life was on 
 earth : there might be unbroken rest, 
 
 evco/uLes eo fiuXa fiaicpov areppova vy^/perou vttvov,
 
 ( 103 ) 
 
 but no possible joy. Homer describes Achilles saying to 
 Odysseus in the Elysian fields : 
 
 " Scoff* not at death, he answered, noble Chief; 
 
 " Rather would I in the Sun's warmth divine 
 " Serve, a poor churl, who drags his days in grief, 
 
 " Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine." 
 
 (\Vorsley"s Homer: Od., XI, 488.) 
 
 Centuries later, Virgil takes up the strain : 
 
 " Quam vellent aethere in alto 
 " Nunc et pauperiem et diros perferre labores." 
 
 {^Etteid, VI, 436.) 
 
 And later on Shakespeare echoes the thought : 
 
 " Ay, but to die, and go we know not where : 
 " To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; 
 " This sensible warm motion to become 
 " A kneaded clod ; 
 
 " To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
 
 " And blown with restless violence round about 
 
 " The pendent world." 
 
 (Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, III, sc. 1.) 
 
 We gather from Prescott's volumes, that the Mexicans had an 
 Idea of Rewards and Punishments after death, (p. 56). 
 
 On the pictures on the walls of Hindu temples we have 
 distinct information of the current Ideas of after-death Rewards 
 and Punishments. In the life of Baba Nanak, who lived in the 
 sixteenth century of the Christian era, and founded the great 
 Sikh Sect of the Brahmanical Religion, we read how pious men 
 were being carried to Heaven in palanquins, while wicked men 
 were stripped naked, and driven with blows into Hell. He adds 
 this striking circumstance : A looker-on saw a sinner being taken 
 in this way to Hell ; half an-hour later he recognised the same 
 man being brought back in a palanquin towards Heaven. How 
 did it happen ? As they went along, they passed over a spot, 
 where Nanak had rested, and the mighty change took place. 
 In Plato's Republic, Gorgias, and Phredo, we have the fact 
 distinctly stated, that men go after death to the Isles of the 
 Blessed, or Tartarus, according to the lives led by them. The 
 three Judges sit at the point, where the road divides : the Soul 
 becomes tainted by the evil conduct of the body: some punish-
 
 ( 104 ) 
 
 merits are remedial, consisting of a few stripes ; some are 
 exemplary, so as to warn others ; there are some, who cannot 
 hope for forgiveness in this world or the next. Some are saved 
 by the intercession of a Saviour, such as Vishnu, the merits of 
 a Saint, like Nanak, as already described. However narrow was 
 Plato's knowledge of the physical world, and contemptible 
 compared to our knowledge was his acquaintance with 
 Geography, History, and Ethnography, yet he had in him 
 the inspiration of a Divine Life, and bowed humbly in the 
 presence, the immanence, of a perfectly wise, and perfectly 
 holy God, and never let go the unflinching conception of 
 Human responsibility: there was more Christianity in him 
 than in many nominal Christians, accurate and precise in 
 dogma, but devoid of the perception of Divine things. 
 
 " There are no traces of scenes of future happiness, or 
 " misery, or of Judgment, on early Greek funeral sculptures ; all 
 " that we see is the farewell of the traveller, who is bound for 
 " some unknown realm : the hand is laid on the shoulder of 
 " the beloved one in the moment of parting; the future finds 
 " no place in the Inscription ; the world to come is out of sight 
 " as too visionary, when men come to deal with business such 
 " as death." (Westcott's Religion in the West, p. 136.) 
 
 In the Nineteenth Century, 1891, October, Mr. Gladstone 
 propounds two questions, worthy of earnest consideration : 
 
 (1) Was the knowledge of a future state evolved by man 
 subjectively from his own thoughts, or was it dimly imported ? 
 
 (2) Did the knowledge progressively increase along with the 
 general growth of intelligence, or did it on the contrary decline ? 
 
 He lays aside for the time the first question, and considers 
 the second : 
 
 (A) Enoch walked with God, for God took him : does not 
 this show, that life in an unseen world was a conception 
 accepted by the writer ? But when was it written ? After the 
 Exile or before ? 
 
 (B) Elijah was corporally translated somewhere. 
 
 (C) The witch called up Samuel : where did he come from ? 
 It is clear that the Hebrews did not believe in the extinction 
 
 of the Soul, or even the body, at death. 
 
 There can be no question, that in the Middle Ages the con- 
 ception of a Day of Judgment, and Rewards and Punishments, 
 was a strong weapon in the hands of unscrupulous priests, and 
 that the necessity of making large donations to the Church was 
 pressed upon persons of property in the hour of their departure. 
 Even in modern times I read that to some it seems hard to 
 believe that rich men, who leave nothing to the Church, and 
 the poor, and the suffering, are genuine believers in a future 
 state of Rewards and Punishments.
 
 ( 105 ) 
 
 Let us ponder over the Emperor Adrian's dying words to his 
 Soul : 
 
 " Animula vagula blandula, 
 " Hospes comesque corporis, 
 
 " Quos nunc abibis in locos ? 
 " Pallidula, rigida, nudula, 
 " Nee ut ante dabis jocos ?" 
 
 Let us now reflect upon the view taken of Life, as a term of 
 years preceding Death. As our acquaintance with the private 
 history of mankind in ancient days increases, many of our 
 previous notions take wing and flee away, and it is well, that 
 they should go. Contemporaries, and even predecessors, of 
 Abraham lived holy lives, or at least there was a standard for 
 them to live up to of holy life. Let us read, and read with 
 humility, the inscription recorded on the tomb of Ameru, the 
 rock tomb of Beni Hassan on the Nile : its date is placed at 
 2500 B.C.: we dare not affirm, that he lived up to the standard 
 of goodness described, any more than we can of those, who 
 lie under Monuments in Westminster Abbey : no doubt their 
 survivors flattered them : be it so : from that flattery we gather 
 what the ideal was of contemporary goodness : 
 
 (1) He was justified, weighed in the scales of Osiris, and 
 cleared at the great tribunal, an indication of the need of 
 righteousness, wherewith to appear before God. 
 
 (2) He never wronged any poor man : let us contrast the 
 words of Isaiah, " The Lord looked for judgment, but behold 
 oppression " (v, 7). 
 
 (3) He never oppressed a widow. 
 
 There was not a poor man ever seen, and no one was 
 hungry : in time of famine he made the people to live by 
 making provision : he gave to each widow the property of her 
 husband : in great rises of the Nile, bringing prosperity, he 
 did not exact arrears of rent. 
 
 If we examine the books of the Hebrew Prophets, we find, 
 that the Princes and Nobles of Jerusalem and Judaea did just 
 the contrary down to the very time of the Exile. 
 
 What shall be said of the words of a modern divine ? " I 
 " have nothing more to do with him, for he has passed to the 
 " bar of his Sovereign -Judge. I humbly trust that the 
 " Sovereign-Judge has reserved to Himself the right to make 
 " allowances : I have no power to make reservations : He that 
 " believeth not, shall be damned" (Canon Sadler, p. 32.) 
 
 What, again, is the view taken of death ? Did they consider 
 it a punishment, or a release from labour, or a reward ? We 
 can find passages supporting all these views. The Idea of 
 death being a punishment is very forcible ; we find such a
 
 ( 106 ) 
 
 phrase as " God slew him," and frightful exterminating 
 passages in all the Sacred Books. An Indian historian of 
 even this century would think it good style to describe all the 
 slain on the side of the party, whom he favoured, as " going to 
 Heaven," and the slain of the other side, as a matter of course, 
 " going to hell." I have read these phrases in the descriptions 
 of battles fought in the beginning of this century. 
 
 The Idea of release from labour comes out in the oft -repeated 
 phrase, "he fell asleep" (eKoi/wJ&y), "He giveth His beloved 
 sleep." 
 
 " ov 70/) Qeot (JhKovoiv cnroO^ijcncei vev<s, 
 
 " felix oppurtunitate mortis " : how many live too long for 
 happiness ! 
 The echo has been caught up by modern poets: 
 
 " No pain, no passionate grief, 
 
 " No anger burning hot, 
 " Will vex her quiet spirit more : 
 
 " She's gone unto that silent shore, 
 " Where grief is not." 
 
 " Take me, oh ! take me, while my life is glory ; 
 
 " Ere I be weary, take me to my rest ; 
 " Ere love be feeble, or my locks be hoary, 
 
 " E'en in my beauty take me to be blest. 
 
 " Leave me not, leave me not in this world of sadness, 
 " When the friends of my youth are gone to their doom : 
 
 " Take me, oh ! take me, while still in youth's gladness, 
 " Into Thy garden there for ever to bloom." 
 
 Men shrunk from Death as beyond their experience : 
 
 " Men long to look upon the coming day 
 " Bearing a burden of unnumbered woes, 
 " So deep in mortals lies the love of life ; 
 " For life we know, but ignorant of death 
 " Each fears alike to leave the Sun's dear light." 
 
 Euripides: fragment of Phoenix, 813. 
 
 (Westcott : Religious Life in the West, p. 124.) 
 
 The Nirvana of the Buddhist is not the annihilation of 
 death, as the Saint may live on after having obtained it ; it is
 
 ( 107 ) 
 
 rather the extinction of that sinful grasping condition of mind 
 and heart, which is the root of all evil, and cause of all pain 
 and sorrow. Paul seems to have realized the idea : " To me to 
 live is Christ." 
 
 Euripides, Cresp, p. 452, strikes another note: 
 
 " It were well that men, in solemn conclave met, 
 " Should mourn each birth, as prelude to great woes, 
 " And bear the dead forth from their home with joy 
 " And thanksgiving, as free at last from toils." 
 
 (Westcott : Religious Life in the West, p. 123.) 
 Euripides again writes in a sad strain : 
 
 " t<s 8'oidev, ec to <£)jv fiev iari Kmdave7v' 
 to tcardaveiv ce £f]v." 
 
 It is difficult to discover the motive of the Court-practices in 
 modern days on the death of a great person. 
 
 Paris, November 2, 1894. 
 "A special Cabinet Council was held this morning at the 
 " Elysee, at which it was decided, that the President of the 
 " Republic and the Ministers should attend the funeral service 
 " for the repose of the Soul of the Emperor of Russia." 
 
 November 4, 1894. 
 " Late last night The Official Gazette published the Imperial 
 manifesto announcing the entry of Princess Alix into the 
 Orthodox Church as follows : ' The bride of our choice has 
 ' to-day been anointed with the holy chrism, and has accepted 
 ' our Orthodox faith under the name of Alexandra, to the 
 ' great comfort of ourselves and all Russia. 
 " ' After the painful trial, imposed upon us by the inscrutable 
 ' will of God, we believe, together with our people, that the 
 ' Soul of our well-beloved father from its celestial abode, has sent 
 ' down a blessing upon the choice of his heart and of our 
 ' own for consenting to share in a faithful and loving spirit 
 ' our incessant solicitude for the welfare and prosperity of our 
 ' Fatherland. 
 
 " ' All our loyal subjects will join with us in imploring God's 
 ' blessing upon our destiny, and that of the people confided to 
 ' our care. 
 
 " ' In announcing this much-wished-for event to all our 
 • faithful subjects, we command, that henceforth our august 
 ' betrothed Princess Alix be called by the name and title
 
 ( 108 ) 
 
 " ' of Her Imperial Highness the Orthodox Grand Duchess 
 " ' Alexandra Feodorovna. Given at Livadia, November 2.' " 
 
 Moreover, Protestants, Mahometans, Pagans from China and 
 Japan, all in full diplomatic uniform, attended these services : 
 we seem transported back to the time of Trajan and Marcus 
 Aurelius. 
 
 The funeral ceremonies of the deposed and discredited 
 Khedive present another variety ; at any rate, Ismail Pasha 
 is not described as looking down from his Mahometan Paradise : 
 " The procession itself presented the same contrasts, the same 
 " curious jumble of Eastern and Western life. Its very 
 " composition reflected all the anomalies of modern Egypt. 
 " Behind detachments of mounted police and Egyptian cavalry 
 " came the Sirdar and staff of the Egyptian Army, unmistakably 
 " English in spite of their Egyptian uniforms. Immediately 
 " behind them walked readers of the Koran, reciting the sacred 
 " verses in a high nasal chant, deputations from the native 
 " Guilds and Corporations bearing flags and banners em- 
 " broidered with sacred devices, descendants of the Prophet in 
 " green turbans and flowing robes, mollahs and ulema in long 
 " kaftans, dervishes in tall felt caps, students from El-azhar ; 
 " in fact, the militant and uncompromising Islam in all its old- 
 " world picturesqueness. Then, in sharp contrast to the 
 " mediaeval scholasticism of the great Mahometan University, 
 " came hundreds of black-coated youths from the modern 
 " schools and colleges, with their European masters. Behind 
 " them again, in curious alternation, native and European 
 " notables, Judges from the Native and Mixed Tribunals, gold- 
 " laced pashas and beys, English Government officials in plain 
 " Stambouline, long-robed clergy of the different Christian 
 " denominations and Rabbis of the Jewish community, red- 
 " coated officers of the British Army of occupation, the 
 " Diplomatic Corps in full uniform, the Ministers and English 
 " Advisers for Finance, Justice, and the Interior, and the 
 " Imperial Ottoman Commissioner, the Khedive, followed by 
 " all the male members of his family. Behind the chief 
 " mourners and the household of the deceased Khedive a 
 " double row of youths sprinkled perfumes and burned incense 
 " in front of the coffin. Covered with an embroidered pall, on 
 " which were displayed the uniform and decorations of the 
 " deceased, the mortal remains of Ismail were borne on the 
 " shoulders of 20 men from the Khedivial body-guard, hard 
 " pressed by a weird crowd of hired female mourners, who rent 
 " the air with their shrieks of woe. Another body of troops, 
 " with arms reversed, closed the strange pageant. 
 
 " The ladies of the ex-Khedive's harem, who, to the number 
 " of some 800, have been holding funeral-wakes for the past
 
 ( 109 ) 
 
 " week at the Kasr-el-Nil Palace, had expressed their intention 
 " of following barefooted the remains of their former lord and 
 " master, but orders from the Palace ultimately forbade such a 
 " public manifestation of their grief." 
 
 3. Mutilation or Disfigurement of Body. 
 
 Circumcision is one of the oldest, most wide-spread, and 
 extraordinary, conditions precedent of Religious convictions : it 
 is scarcely credible, that any educated Christian European could 
 have accepted "ex animo " the Jewish persuasion, or Islam, so 
 it is impossible to find out, whether such a one in the 
 Nineteenth Century, under Religious influences, submitted to 
 such a disgusting initiatory rite. It was practised in Egypt, 
 but chiefly among the Priests. It prevails among the barbarous 
 tribes of Africa, quite independent of Islam. It seems beyond 
 hope, that this old-world, and degraded, mutilating of the body, 
 will die out. Extracting the teeth, boring the ears, painting and 
 tattooing the body, passing rings through the nose, painting caste- 
 marks on the forehead, shaving off the hair, placing the limbs 
 in a position of torture by way of penance : all such practices, 
 based on Religion, must, and will, have their way out, and die : 
 one of the not sufficiently recognised merits of Christianity, 
 as a Human association is, that the sacred body is entirely set 
 free from disfigurement in the name of Religion ; and no dis- 
 qualification on account of blemish or infirmity is admitted. 
 The Hindu married woman still pierces her nose to hold the 
 marriage ring ; some foolish women in Europe, and even men, 
 still pass rings through the lobe of their ears, and deem it a 
 decoration. These are only bad survivals, and in no way 
 connected with Religion. 
 
 Paul the Apostle boldly got rid of circumcision, not only of 
 Gentile converts, but of the reputed children of Abraham. 
 None of the great Races of Eastern Asia would have submitted 
 to this degraded ceremonial. It does not appear, that Abraham 
 brought it from Mesopotamia, but introduced it when he was in 
 Canaan : that it should have been tolerated in the Mosaic code 
 is remarkable, when we read, Leviticus, xix, 28, the law forbidding 
 the cutting of the flesh for the dead, or putting any marks on 
 the body ; that the Egyptians practised it, is evidenced beyond 
 doubt by examination of statues, which have been found. A 
 Clergyman in my presence justified it, as being the command 
 of God : if so, how did Paul find himself justified by his own 
 authority to abrogate it : on one occasion John (Gospel, vii, 
 22, 23) alludes to it in a marked manner, and not only all 
 proselytes to the Jewish faith were circumcised, but during the
 
 ( no ) 
 
 century preceding Anno Domini the Jews had forcibly circum- 
 cised members of the neighbouring tribes, which had fallen 
 into their power. 
 
 4. Strange and Abominable Customs. 
 
 The annals of every country teem with customs, such as 
 burning widows, killing female children, burying alive lepers, 
 of which three customs I am personally cognizant, and to which 
 I helped to put a stop in 1846 in North India ; also passing sons 
 through the fire, as Manasseh, King of Judah, did; killing twins, 
 a custom still frequent in West Africa ; burying alive unhappy 
 wives and slaves of deceased men, to accompany them to the 
 next world, still practised in Africa ; burying men alive under 
 the four corners of a new palace, as was the practice of King 
 Thebau in Burma ; castrating boys to supply the service of 
 Eunuchs, which apparently was practised by the Hebrews in 
 the time of King Josiah ; Slave-hunting, Slave-dealing, Slavery 
 with all its horrors ; gladiators' shows, bull-fights, cock-fights. 
 No Religion, not even the Christian, seems to have been free 
 from some or other of these disgraces and degradations of the 
 Human Race, and many were done under the influence of 
 Religion, and with the encouragement of the Priests; for in- 
 stance, the Koptic Priests still do all the work of castration of 
 Eunuchs in Egypt. I have before me a Spanish notice, that 
 a rich widow in Andalusia offered some bulls of her own 
 breeding for the bull-fight, " come un' ovra piedosa," " as 
 a pious offering." 
 
 Other abominable customs I pass over in silence. 
 
 One would have supposed, that the killing of all female 
 children would not have been tolerated by the wealthy, educated, 
 and so-called pious; but it was precisely this class that did it. 
 I reasoned in 1846 with a venerable old Priest, a descendant 
 of Baba Nanak, the Reformer, on the enormity of female infanti- 
 cide ; his answer was, that the terms daughter, sister, aunt, had 
 never been known in their sacred families ; when I pleaded for 
 the lepers, I was told that they were used to it. Even now the 
 Government of India are striving to introduce the notion of 
 Matrimony into certain classes of Southern India, as for the 
 convenience of the Priesthood all the women have been deemed 
 common property, and the child of the Sister succeeds to 
 property, as no man can have a legitimate child of his own ; 
 and Religion is put forward as the motive of this abominable 
 custom. 
 
 A kind of Nemesis has followed the benevolent attempts of 
 the Anglo-Indian officials half a century ago. The Census
 
 ( 111 ) 
 
 reports twenty-two Millions of widows, and a vast number of 
 unmarried females, a thing unknown in former years, and a 
 great misfortune in an Indian family, and a perfect invasion of 
 armies of lepers. 
 
 Another strange custom is that of males and females moving 
 about in perfect nakedness. In Africa that is an ordinary 
 feature. A Missionary reported the extreme discomposure 
 caused to him by having to preach to a congregation of adults, 
 male and female, standing round him entirely nude. In British 
 India there was one tribe, the Juang, in which the women 
 refused to wear clothing from a superstitious feeling, that the 
 tigers would destroy them, if they did. A large supply of 
 clothes was made by the Government, and engagements taken 
 from the men, that the women should wear them.
 
 ( 112 ) 
 
 CAP. V. RECORDS OF PAST GENERATIONS. 
 
 i. Written. 
 
 A. Necessity for Higher Criticism. 
 
 B. Connection between Language and Religion. 
 
 C. Advantages derived from perusal of Sacred Books. 
 
 D. Description of Sacred Books. 
 
 E. Was there a Divine Afflatus ? 
 
 F. Blemishes in literary style of the Books. 
 
 2. Oral : Tradition. 
 
 i. Written. 
 
 In the Religions of barbarous tribes there is no record of the 
 past beyond the uncertain recollection of a totally illiterate, 
 and uncultured, community: this is called Tradition, or Legends. 
 In all the great Religions there exists a considerable, important, 
 and interesting, literature: documents written contemporaneously, 
 or committed to writing after several generations of oral trans- 
 mission, are found in a dead, and imperfectly-known, Language, 
 and a Written Character difficult to read, quite distinct from the 
 vernacular of the people : the narrative is in a style of ex- 
 ceeding exaggeration, interspersed with expressions of great 
 coarseness, and stories quite incredible to an age when people 
 think. The mode of transmission of such a literature has been 
 threefold : 
 
 (i) By an effort of memory of succeeding generations of 
 Bards. 
 
 (2) By Inscriptions on rocks, stone tablets, papyri, or clay 
 bricks, which have survived to the present date. 
 
 (3) By copies of copies of copies, versions of versions, 
 translations of translations, the documents themselves being 
 imperfect and mutilated, and generally violated by a succession 
 of copyists, editors, interpreters, or bona-fide falsifyers. We 
 are uncertain whether we have lost portions, or what portions 
 ought to be excluded from, or included in, the recognised 
 volume, or whether they are in the right order of sequence. 
 
 The works of Plato, as a fact (B.C. 347), older than the Greek
 
 ( 113 ) 
 
 Septuagint, have reached us in a most perfect condition : the 
 text must have been reverently watched from the first 
 (Davis's Republic of Plato, 1890, Preface). In many other 
 cases the Records have come down in a fragmentary state ; there 
 was a prejudice among the custodians of such literature against 
 translating them into a modern vernacular, with the exception of 
 the Jewish Records, which were translated into Greek, and 
 Aramaic, and a portion into the Samaritan ; similarly the Avesta 
 Records were translated into Pahlavi. 
 
 A century ago the Old Testament stood out as the only 
 representative of the pre-Hellenic period. When men read it, 
 they seemed to lay aside all links of habit, all canons of 
 criticism, all conceptions of probability; the existence of the 
 relations of the Deity with man was presumed to have been 
 totally different from that of modern times. Moreover, the 
 atmosphere, which surrounds the Old Testament, is totally 
 different from that of the New Testament. Paul writes in a 
 style, which might be equalled, but could not be surpassed, 
 in later ages. Now Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, India, 
 China, Japan, have leapt into a new existence, and present 
 phenomena analogous to those of the Old Testament. The 
 Religious conceptions of the elder world represent the com- 
 munion of man with a Deity bearing a particular name. Portions 
 of the Records of India, China, and Persia, have survived in 
 their original form ; the Monumental Inscriptions of the others 
 are accessible. 
 
 Great liberty is taken with the awful person of the Deity in 
 all these Records : in the childhood of mankind there appears 
 to have been no respect for accuracy, or probability. Words 
 are placed in the mouth of the Deity in the Veda, and in the 
 Avesta: it was the form of literary expression, which ancient 
 men were audacious enough to adopt : they conceived an Idea, 
 no doubt in a reverent spirit, and then placed it in the mouth 
 of the great Ruler of the Universe. In Jeremiah, xl, 1, the 
 usual formula is given : " The word that came to Jeremiah " ; 
 but the whole chapter is mere History : the Speaker's 
 Commentary is obliged to suggest, that History of the Past was 
 inspired, as well as Predictions of the Future. Every verse of the 
 Achemenian Tablets at Behistun begins : " Darius said." These 
 Records give conversations, as if there were reporters standing 
 with pencil in the hand behind the curtain, though the context 
 shows, that no third person was present, and those, who were 
 present, could not write : the actual words are given, but not 
 in the Language of the speaker, but of the Chronicler. The 
 Chronicler, who compiled the Book of Samuel centuries after 
 the death of Samuel, describes Samuel as in constant com- 
 munication with the Deity about the choice of a king of the 
 
 8
 
 ( 114 ) 
 
 Hebrew Nation : he does not tell us in what form it was made, 
 whether by words or suggested thoughts. In the Epic Poem 
 of the Hindu we are invited to a discussion in Heaven betwixt 
 the Deities on the subject of sending an Incarnation in the 
 person of Rama to save the world ; very much in the style 
 adopted by Milton in " Paradise Lost," with this difference, that 
 the utterances of Milton are accepted as Poetry, those of the 
 ancient Chroniclers were deemed to be absolute Truth. This 
 leads us to reflect on how far the alleged Inspiration extends 
 to the subject of the Narrative, or to the literary form. One 
 thing is clear, that in such ancient carefully-treasured Records 
 we read perhaps only one, perhaps only two, syllables of the 
 great Word, which the Deity in divers Languages, far distant 
 climes, at different Epochs, has allowed to be uttered, and to 
 survive, when temple and tower went to the ground. A recent 
 writer remarks with truth, and I quote his words, though many 
 will not agree with him, as they run counter to deep-rooted 
 prejudices, and a general feeling, that the Creator does not care 
 equally for all His poor creatures : 
 
 " When we read the utterances of the Sacred Books of the 
 " East we learn, that no Human Soul was ever quite forgotten, 
 " and that there are no clouds of Superstition, through which 
 " the ray of Eternal Truth cannot pierce : they reveal the fact, 
 " that God has not forsaken any of His children, if only they 
 " feel after Him, if haply they may find Him." (Gifford- 
 Lectures, 1893, Theosophy, p. 23.) 
 
 It is clear that the Assyrian emissary Rabshakeh considered, 
 that he also was Heaven-directed in his expressions : whether 
 he was so in reality, is not the question : he thought that he 
 was so, and speaks thus : " Am I now come up without the 
 Lord against this place to destroy it ? The Lord said to me, Go 
 up against this land, and destroy it" (II Kings, xviii, 25). No 
 doubt the Hebrews would say, that he was deceived by a false 
 Prophet, and, when the Hebrews asserted, that their Prophet 
 spoke the truth, he doubted it, and returned the compliment of 
 the Hebrew Prophet being false. 
 
 The subject is so large that I must subdivide it, and treat 
 each subdivision separately. No one, who has not examined the 
 parchment Synagogue-Rolls, now collected in the Museum 
 of St. Petersburg, or Indian Manuscripts on slips of the 
 Talipat leaf, can realize the difficulty, which surrounded 
 literary work in ancient days. They were written for the 
 most part in one continuous line, with no separation of words, 
 or sentences. In Sanskrit there was something worse, for by the 
 law of Euphony the last letter of one word coalesced with the 
 first letter of the next word : there was no punctuation, no 
 division of verses, sections, or chapters, no facilities for marginal
 
 ( 115 ) 
 
 references, or indices : if a Commentary existed, it seemed to 
 make the matter worse by its bulkiness, and it being written 
 in the same manner: a second elephant was tied to the first. 
 Consider the Written Characters : the Hebrews changed theirs 
 to the well-known Square Character about a century before 
 Anno Domini ; the Samaritan text is in the old Character. 
 In India the Written Characters are numerous : some for the 
 learned, some for the shopkeeper, a third for the Sacred Books. 
 
 What influence did Sacred Books have directly upon the Soul 
 of the common people, if any indirectly through the Preacher ? 
 I should reply, before the invention of Printing " none" ; before 
 the beginning of this century "little." We are so familiar now 
 with beautifully clear editions in every child's hand, that we 
 unconsciously transfer this state of things to former times : some 
 passages of the 119th Psalm unintentionally deceive us. 
 
 Let anybody, who has seen a MS., whether in uncials, or 
 cursive, in minuscules, or tachygraphy, consider what a small 
 portion of the community could read at all, and of those who 
 could read, how few could read such MS. : 
 
 (1) The Veda: absolutely none; the first knowledge of 
 
 great portions has come from the European transla- 
 tion to the Hindu Nation. 
 
 (2) The Buddhistic Books: none but the Priests. 
 
 (3) The Confucianist and Taouist Books: the literati only. 
 
 (4) The Zoroastrian Books : none. 
 
 (5) The Koran: as regards non- Arabian Mahometans only 
 
 those who read, and of these only a small percentage 
 can understand. 
 
 (6) The Old Testament: none but those who had acquired 
 
 the Hebrew Language, which ceased to be a living 
 Language after the return from Exile at Babylon. 
 
 When translations into living Languages existed, there was 
 still the formidable difficulty of the Written Character, and 
 the absence of all the facilities of Capital Letters, punctuation, 
 Paragraphs, and References. We know what difficulties are pre- 
 sented by the written MSS. of the New Testament in the familiar 
 Greek, written in a literary age, 300 a. d., and the study of a MS. 
 in an Indian Written Character, even in this century, is no easy 
 task : in the centuries before Anno Domini the difficulties must 
 have been infinitely greater, and the resources of Memory were 
 more made use of, as indeed they are to this day, when men 
 can repeat large portions of their Sacred Books by heart. 
 
 The two classes of Records are : 
 
 (1) Those that are immoveable on rock, and carved on 
 metal, brick, or stone-tablets.
 
 ( 116 ) 
 
 (2) Those that are on perishable materials, moveable, and 
 liable to all the incidents of Human existence, fire, 
 water, ravages of insects, decay, rough handling, 
 wilful destruction by petulant kings (Jeremiah, 
 xxxvi, 23), or by intolerant religionists, as happened 
 to the early translations of the Bible in England. 
 
 The Rock-Inscriptions, such as those in many parts of India 
 by King Asoka, and at Behistiin in Persia by King Darius, 
 bring us face to face with the Monarchs themselves : in all 
 probability they looked on, and touched the identical objects, 
 which we can see and can touch at this day. Any attempt to 
 falsify is detected. How priceless would be the two Tables 
 of Stone of Moses' Law, or some dedicatory Statue put up by 
 King Solomon in the Temple at Jerusalem: there is nothing, 
 absolutely nothing, earlier than the Moabite Stone of the ninth 
 century B.C. in the Alphabet then used by the Hebrews. The 
 Egyptian and Mesopotamian Inscriptions go back to the time 
 of Abraham and beyond. Buried away in safety, they have 
 escaped decay, and bring messages to this generation. The 
 Indian Inscriptions of King Asoka have been preserved some- 
 times by moss-covering. We feel that we are dealing with 
 positive unadulterated facts. 
 
 How different is the position of all moveable Manuscripts 
 on fragile materials ! The bricks of Mesopotamia are indeed 
 fresh from the writer's hands ; the papyri in Mummies are 
 coeval with the dates of the tomb, in which they are found ; 
 but as regards other Manuscripts, there is no certainty, that they 
 have not been tampered with, intentionally or unintentionally. 
 No Hebrew, or Sanskrit, Manuscript in existence is much older 
 than the Norman conquest of England. Emphatically we have 
 the treasures, which haughty Time has spared to us, as the out- 
 come of the genius of the great men of past centuries, in 
 earthen vessels. 
 
 A. Necessity for Higher Otitic ism. 
 
 Higher Criticism is the peculiar right of this Epoch : we are 
 told to prove all things, and not to lend our ears to old 
 women's fables. Archbishop Benson thus expressed himself, 
 September 22, 1893, in his Visitation-Charge: 
 
 " The thirty-nine Articles throw no discouragement in the 
 " way of the most rigid Criticism of the Sacred Books ; they 
 " set forth, that these Books must ever maintain their place, 
 " as tests of Truth, but, as their meaning must be arrived at by 
 " the reverent use of Sanctified reason, they do not put the 
 " Bible up, as the antagonist, but as the guiding help, of man's
 
 ( "7 ) 
 
 " reason. How far questions of physical science, or other 
 " matters, quite irrelevant to the principles, by which the 
 " Human Soul lives, have any place in the revelation, which the 
 " Bible contains, they do not consider. . . We are to read the 
 " Sacred Records, as intelligent men, with a full right to judge 
 " of their meaning by all help, which an enlightened reason, 
 " and an enlarged observation, and experience, and the 
 " judgment of the wise of the past and present time, may 
 " place within our reach." 
 
 In this critical age a literary fraud is a fraud, but it was not 
 so in the centuries preceding, and immediately following, Anno 
 Domini. A person, who wished to publish his views, had no 
 hesitation in assuming the " nom de plume " (for it was no 
 more) of Enoch, Moses, Solomon, Baruch, Daniel, or even of 
 the Sibyl ; no one of his contemporaries was deceived for a 
 moment, any more than by a letter in The Tunes signed Brutus, 
 or Socrates ; it was a pious fraud, but later ages have taken the 
 names of Books too seriously, as we should rightly do as regards 
 a modern author. Had Milton published his "Paradise Lost" 
 in those days, his utterances would have been accepted by a 
 credulous age as revelations, just as the Drama of the Book of 
 Job is deemed to be a narrative of real conversations, in which 
 the Ruler of the Universe is made to take a part. The 
 difficulty was felt very acutely at the period, when Greek 
 and Semitic Thought were impinging on each other. The 
 abstract Philosophic Conception of Plato on the subject of 
 the Logos was idealized and sanctified by Philo, and then 
 passed into dogmatic Christianity in the Gospel of John. The 
 Greeks had long before recognised the literary habit of intro- 
 ducing into serious History, such as the Peloponnesian War of 
 Thucydides, entirely fabricated orations, or written despatches : 
 it would seem monstrous in the present Epoch to do so, but it 
 was not deemed so in that Epoch : can we place entire credit on 
 the despatches of Roman Authorities quoted textually in the 
 Acts of the Apostles, any more than on the speeches, attributed 
 to Members of the House of Commons last century, but actually 
 written by Dr. Johnson, or other Editors of News-letters. 
 
 Educated man is a reasoning being, and there are some 
 demands on Faith, such as provoke an unqualified rejection, 
 as inconsistent with ordinary common-sense, unless the person, 
 who hears them, is willing to swallow anything that a Priest tells 
 him. Sanctified common-sense rejects the notion, that Moses 
 wrote the last chapter of Deuteronomy, describing his own 
 death. This is but the principle, on which all Higher Criticism 
 proceeds. 
 
 There were no Libraries worth calling by that name : the 
 travellers, who have visited the Convents of Mount Sinai, Athos,
 
 ( 118 ) 
 
 and the Natron Lake in Egypt, tell us of the state, in which 
 documents, the value of which is inestimable, are found. The 
 writings of Aristotle were placed away by one of his admirers in 
 a safe place, and bricked up, and lost sight of for 180 years: 
 even now, at this late date, fragments of classical authors are 
 coming to light. We may find additional books of the Old 
 Testament or New Testament, which were not known to the 
 early Christians. There is no historic testimony to the author- 
 ship of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides until more than 
 two hundred years after he died. 
 
 Pass from the Public Library to the ip^acm'jpiov of the writer, 
 and mark the difference of the environment. In each and all of 
 the Sacred Books of the Zoroastrian, the Brahman, the Buddhist, 
 the Confucianist, the Hebrew, we can picture to ourselves, how 
 some great genius, or high official, or a succession of such, 
 occupied for generations the same office, a room in the Temple, 
 or the Priest's office, or a Convent, and placed away their 
 autograph, or dictated, Manuscripts, in some chest, or shelf, 
 or drawer, behind the Image of the Idol, under the bed of the 
 Priests, amidst the clothes and the furniture : they were quite 
 forgotten when the authors died : somebody, in a later century, 
 of a curious disposition, came upon them, examined them, sorted 
 them, arranged them to the best of his ability, made a clean 
 copy of them with his own hands, or that of his clerks, and 
 let the old fragments perish : nor did he limit his interest 
 to copying, for he corrected what seemed to him mistakes, 
 supplied omissions, intercalated notes : the next generation 
 accepted this revision as the original, and the train of connection 
 of one fragment with the other was hopelessly lost till the 
 time of Higher Criticism came. 
 
 No chain is stronger than its weakest link, with no disrespect 
 to the holy men, who more than two thousand years ago 
 committed to parchment, or papyrus, or the talipat leaf, or the 
 skins of beasts, their thoughts in the Written Characters of their 
 Epoch. The Inscriptions on stones and rocks remain as they 
 were on their first day : whatever they are worth, they are 
 genuine articles. We know, however, that they also can be 
 tampered with ; for the Inscriptions of Queen Hatasu had been 
 deliberately tampered with by her brother, who succeeded her, 
 but the alteration made is palpable. Manuscripts carry in 
 themselves the seeds of decay, and can be replaced by others, 
 and the fragments of one mixed up with fragments of another ; 
 this is not possible with documents on stone, or burnt brick. 
 
 At any rate, the altered point of view of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 which formerly had the sole monopoly of Sacred Books, must 
 be considered : they are the same Scriptures, as a house is the 
 same house, whether standing alone on a plain, or surrounded
 
 ( 119 ) 
 
 by houses. There is now a wider orbit than that of the old 
 Roman Empire : Syria is no longer the Orient "par eminence," 
 the type of everything in Asia. The shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and the Region of Mesopotamia, no longer comprise " the 
 whole world." The Religious conceptions, and the Sacred 
 Books, of the ancient Nations of Asia and Egypt, are no longer 
 things to be despised or talked lightly of; their objects of 
 Worship can no longer correctly be called evil Spirits and 
 devils ; their Worship and Prayers can no longer be described 
 as abominations and lies, but as the early crying out of Nations 
 in their childhood to their great Creator, the greatest proof of 
 the greatness of that Creator, and illustrations of the innate 
 piety of His poor creatures, for every Nation has tried to find 
 out the great Power, which rules the world, and has failed. 
 
 The rise of new difficulties is as essential to the Progress of 
 Truth as the removal of old puzzles : it sometimes happens, that 
 Truth, Everlasting, Unchangeable, is confused with the opinion 
 of one man, one coterie, one school of thought. In Higher 
 Criticism that word which appears so fearful, " New," is really 
 nothing but the " Old," better understood and further developed. 
 The aim is the recovery of the true meaning of the Bible. 
 Every Truth is better than even the most edifying error, and 
 a Faith, which is irreconcilable with Truth, cannot possibly be 
 the right one. A perfectly free, but none the less devout, 
 Criticism is the best ally of Spiritual Religion, and of a sound 
 apologetic Theology. 
 
 The license, which was taken by early Chronologers, not from 
 dishonest, or base, or lying, motives, but merely from their idea 
 of correcting what appeared to them to be a mistake, is illus- 
 trated by Dr. Hincks' remarks on the Book of Manetho, 
 which were clearly doctored so as to meet the wishes of the 
 Chronologer, and to bring the books of the Egyptians into 
 harmony with what the writer deemed to be the correct inter- 
 pretation of the Old Testament. There was an utter disregard 
 of literary propriety: in modern times a critic would write 
 a pamphlet ; in those days the critic altered the Manuscript, 
 which seemed to him to be wrong, and said no more about it. 
 
 A late writer, Mr. Bellars, in his " Our Inheritance in the Old 
 Testament," expresses himself to the following effect: 
 
 " From a sincere and reverent and unprejudiced and truly 
 learned Criticism the believer has nothing to fear." From a 
 review of his work in The Record, 1894., I quote the following: 
 
 "The mischief has been partly due to the unintelligent way, 
 " in which many have read the Bible. They have practically 
 " ignored the Human element. In spite of the clearest 
 " difference of style, and manner, and genius, they have viewed 
 " the author merely as the pen of the Holy Spirit, with no
 
 ( 120 ) 
 
 " personal individuality. That there are plain marks of 
 " editorial action in the Old Testament is a matter of mere 
 " common-sense. How far the Human element extends is a 
 " matter of careful study, as is the question of what is literal 
 " history, and what is allegory." 
 
 The peculiar features, and the weak side of Written Records, 
 are, that they have to be interpreted by the ever-varying 
 intelligence of different generations of men, who import into 
 what they read, or hear read, the tenets of their own environ- 
 ment, and intellectual status : the Jews of Palestine were grossly 
 ignorant ; the Christians of the first four centuries, in spite of 
 the Greek and Roman Philosophic influences, not much better; 
 then came a long tyrannous period of Ecclesiastical despotic 
 interpretation ; with the Reformation came freedom, but there 
 was ignorance of the world outside Europe and its frontagers ; 
 there was an entire absence of knowledge of Comparative 
 Philology, Comparative Religion, and Higher Criticism. The 
 situation of the followers of the other Sacred Books was, 
 intellectually, still more degraded. A kind of worship of the 
 Book itself of the grossest kind followed ; even to this day 
 I read, that one hundred and forty Christians in Armenia were 
 imprisoned on the charge of desecrating the Koran. The 
 Mahometan would think nothing of burning or destroying, 
 a Sacred Book of the Hindu, or Zoroastrian ; and in Europe 
 to this day, the Priests of Rome follow the Bible-Society agent, 
 and tear up all the copies which they can get hold of. 
 
 Another feature is, that the Sacred Books of all Religions 
 are understood only by educated persons, and only partially by 
 them, for they are old-fashioned in their phraseology, poetical, 
 symbolical, exaggerated, full of coarse similes or allegories, 
 and speculations too refined for the vulgar herd, who had to 
 be content with an inferior order of Divine Things, and fell 
 back on lower, but visible, objects of Worship. 
 
 Certain misconceptions have to be cleared away: any date 
 at pleasure can be assigned to the period of Job's existence: 
 critically it matters not, but it does matter very much what date is 
 assigned to the beautiful Hebrew Drama, which bears the name 
 of Job. Admitting that there was a Hebrew of great distinc- 
 tion, named Daniel, at Babylon during the Captivity, there is 
 great difficulty in assigning the Book, which bears his name, to 
 that Epoch. So also a careful distinction has to be made 
 betwixt the date of a book in the recognised form, in which 
 we have it, and the dates of the materials, on which the book 
 is based. This difficulty presses heavily on the Student of the 
 Sacred Books of the Zoroastrian. Will anyone be bold enough 
 to state, that any book in the sense, in which we use the term, 
 whether a roll, or leaves, existed before 700 B.C., familiarly used
 
 ( 121 ) 
 
 by private owners, not liturgical Rolls of the Temple. To 
 compose such a book there must be a graphic vehicle for con- 
 veying Ideas, such as an Alphabet, a substance like papyrus, 
 or skin, or clay, on which the words could be impressed, 
 a colouring-matter, by which in the two former cases the 
 impression could be made, and a vehicle for conveying that 
 liquid under proper control of a skilful hand. Before that 
 Epoch, the tongue was the teacher, not the pen. 
 
 B. Connection between Language and Religion. 
 
 Language is the vehicle of communication between a man 
 and his fellow-men ; Religion is the same between Man and 
 God. The conception of Religion, and the mode of expressing 
 orders, opinions, wishes, are generally limited within National, 
 or tribal, boundaries. As the Religious horizon enlarges, so 
 does the capacity of expressing Ideas by words enlarge also. 
 The first and most important oral legends, or written Records, 
 in each Nation are connected with Religion. Man was born 
 without either : his earliest thoughts were connected with his 
 Religious conceptions, and they found expression at a very 
 early period in Language. No other animal, but the genus 
 Homo, has acquired the power to express his thoughts in 
 words : intelligent animals, like dogs, clearly have thoughts, but 
 though they live their lives, many of them, with men in the 
 highest stage of culture, they never reach the power of articulate 
 speech, nor can they be taught to do so. On the other hand, 
 no Race of man, however ignorant or degraded, has been found 
 devoid of the power of conveying thoughts to words, and of those 
 words, few as they may be, a portion relate to their Religious 
 conception. We come, therefore, to this, that the Creator gave 
 man to work out in his own way his Language-making Faculty 
 and Religious Instinct. No Race has ever been found un- 
 supplied with these two gifts, however low their standard. 
 
 It is no fond fancifulness, that connects Language with 
 Religion : neither apparently could exist without the other ; 
 at least, they have never been found existing alone : a deaf and 
 dumb community could with difficulty join in prayer. The 
 Traveller landing in a barbarous island, catches alive the 
 sounds, that represent thoughts, calls them words, and records 
 them ; he then, through those words used by himself, probes the 
 thoughts, and finds his way to their Religious conceptions. 
 
 Bishop Westcott thus expresses himself : " Religion must 
 " be a solution of the mysteries, by which man is surrounded : 
 " a solution, which shall bring into harmonious relation, Past, 
 " Present, and Future, the seen and unseen, the conflicting 
 " elements of our personal nature.
 
 ( 122 ) 
 
 "A Religion and a Language, even in their simplest form, 
 are witnesses to necessities in Man's constitution : no one 
 Language exhausts Man's capacity for denning objects of 
 thought, but all Languages give a lively and rich picture 
 of his certain, yet gradual, advance in innumerable different 
 paths towards the fulness of intellectual development. So 
 is it with the many Faiths, which Men have adopted : these, 
 in due measure, reveal something of his Religious powers 
 and needs." (Westcott: Gospel of Life, pp. 18, 106.) 
 
 C. Advantages derived from the perusal of the Sacred Books. 
 
 "The central Idea of the Book-Religions was the necessity 
 of harmony betwixt Man, the World, and God. Great 
 Teachers in different climes accentuated and recorded this ; 
 but in lapse of time mistakes, misinterpretations, and gross 
 ignorance, overlaid it on one side with speculation, on the 
 other with material ceremoniousness. What was meant to 
 be a Religion developed into a cold Philosophy, such as the 
 Brahmanical and Greek, or degraded itself into an unmean- 
 ing ritual, or diluted itself by incorporation of local practices 
 and rural beliefs." 
 
 Professor Legge writes : " One is often grieved to read the 
 incautious assertion of writers, who think, that apart from our 
 Christian Scriptures there are no lessons for man about their 
 duties, and that Heathendom has in consequence never been 
 anything but a slough of immoral filth, and outrageous crime. 
 Such writers betray their ignorance of the system and people, 
 about which they affirm such things, and their ignorance 
 of the sacred volumes, which they wish to exalt. Such 
 advocacy is damaging rather than beneficial to Christianity." 
 Bishop Westcott writes: "As Christianity is universal, every 
 genuine expression of Human Religious thought illuminates 
 our Faith, and enables us to see in the Gospel some corre- 
 sponding Truth : if we can understand what whole Races 
 of men were feeling after, we shall have a clue to the discovery 
 of mysteries, for which we, with our limited Religious instincts, 
 should not otherwise have sought, and in the given assurance, 
 that the Gospel meets each real need of Humanity, we shall 
 find the highest conceivable proof of its final and absolute 
 Truth." (Westcott: Gospel of Life, p. 121.) 
 In the posthumous volumes of the Histoire des peuple Israel, 
 vol. iii, p. 524, Renan thus expresses himself: 
 
 " The return of the Jews from Babylon was of general 
 " advantage to the Human Race : it solved a question of life 
 " or death. Had part of the Jewish exiles not returned, the fate 
 " of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin would have been that
 
 ( 123 ) 
 
 " of the other ten : they would have disappeared, and Christianity 
 " would never have come into existence : the Hebrew Sacred 
 " Books, such as they were when the Exile commenced, would 
 " have disappeared also : we should have known nothing of 
 " those strange stories, which have charmed and consoled 
 " so many generations. The little Caravan, which crossed the 
 " desert 535 B.C. from Babylon to Jerusalem, carried with it the 
 " Future of the World, and laid the foundations of the Religion 
 " of Humanity." 
 
 It is true, and Islam would never have come into existence 
 either; but no doubt the Parsi of Bombay, the Buddhist and 
 Confucianist of Further Asia, the Brahman of India, the pro- 
 fessors of which Religions comprise more than half the population 
 of the world, would no doubt tell in the same romantic way how 
 the preservation of their Sacred Books during time of peril 
 affected the character of the Millions of Asia: the Buddhist 
 Pilgrims from China to India did something of the same kind. 
 
 The history of the people of the ancient world, if looked 
 at from a proper point of view, is a grand procession of an 
 ever-increasing knowledge of God ; all the different Religious 
 conceptions, and forms of civilization, contributed in their 
 different ways to the great purposes of the Creator of Mankind, 
 and their existence was part of the Divine Plan. Each con- 
 ception was within the radius of its influence, a Schoolmaster, 
 iraiBdeywyos, leading on to something higher and better, which 
 coming Ages, and Nations yet to be born, would mature. 
 Unassisted man would have been unequal to the gestation of 
 such spiritual Empires as those of the Brahman, the Buddhist, 
 and the Confucianist. To suppose this to have come into 
 existence in defiance of the Divine Will, and in contempt of 
 His Commands, would indeed be a practical piling of Pelion on 
 Ossa, as told in Greek fables. From the very first the Human 
 Race knew of a Divine Law, of a fixed distinction betwixt 
 Right and Wrong; gradually they became aware of their guilt, 
 God's mercy, the necessity of Prayer and of Holiness, and all 
 these things are set forth in the Sacred Books, which we are 
 now discussing. 
 
 A one-sided partizan in the Quarterly Review, January, 1894, 
 writes : " Despite the poetic fancy, which invests non- 
 " Christian Religious systems with an aureole of sanctity and 
 " beauty, they have been weighed, and found wanting in power 
 " to meet the deepest wants of mankind. Whatever their right- 
 " ful place may have been under Providence in the education of 
 "Humanity; whatever the virtues, which they are calculated 
 " to produce among people in certain stages of mental and 
 "material development; however beautiful the theory, or 
 " elevated the ethics, which some of them embody or enjoin,
 
 ( 124 ) 
 
 " we cannot accept them, as a substitute for Christianity." 
 Who asked anybody to accept them on these terms ? Who 
 asked this substitution to be made ? This is only a rhetorical 
 flourish. Compared to that Gospel preached in Galilee in 
 the great Anno Domini, the fairest flowers of the Ancient 
 world are as weeds ; but look around at Christianity, as 
 evidenced in the Nineteenth Century in Europe, and as 
 deported from Europe into Africa, Asia, and Oceania, in the 
 form of the most noxious products of the Earth. Is there 
 anything Christian in the mode, in which Europeans deal with 
 subject Races ? Take U-Ganda in Central Africa, and Ma- 
 Tabele-land in South Africa, as the latest specimens. The 
 Ancient Heathen before Anno Domino erred, because they 
 know no better. The Moderns err, in spite of knowledge, 
 warning, and example. The chief feature of Christian Life 
 and Liberty is, that it leaves the Salvation of the Soul of each 
 of God's creatures to his own Faith in his Saviour, that it 
 spurns Ritual and Sacerdotalism ; that it will have nothing to 
 do with the old illusions, which existed before Anno Domini ; 
 that it is so reasonable, so sweetly simple, so suitable to man in 
 every stage of Human culture ; not limited to any Race, any 
 Country, any Language, or any period of Human life. Will not, 
 however, the enforcement of Higher Criticism reduce the 
 estimation of the Scriptures, and injure Religion. Prof. Driver 
 objects to the Bible (at least the Old Testament) being called 
 the " Word of God," and would substitute " the Word of God 
 mediated by Human instrumentality." My own view has always 
 been the same. As the A0709 Himself came to us in Human 
 guise, subject to the infirmities of hunger, thirst, fatigue, grief, 
 tears, Human love, and even Human anger, so the Bible has 
 come to us in the envelopment of perishing vocables, Human 
 sounds, logical sentences, subject to the perils of copying, editing, 
 correcting, transposing portions, omissions, additions, all 
 which perils do not exist in our literary age. Milton's Poems 
 come down to us practically intact in his own MS. 
 
 In The Expositor of October, 1894, there is a paper called 
 " Prof. W. Robertson Smith's Doctrine of Scripture," by Prof. 
 Lindlay, of Glasgow. Robertson Smith maintains, that his 
 doctrine as regards the Old Testament is identical with that 
 of Calvin and the Reformers : 
 
 " The Bible brought man into personal fellowship with a 
 " redeeming God [p. 245], who through the ages had spoken to 
 " His people, telling His Salvation, and giving the promise of 
 " it, sometimes in direct words, sometimes in pictures of His 
 " dealing with the Hebrews." But these Scriptures were 
 historical (p. 247). 
 
 " Just as the principle of personal Faith is the foundation
 
 ( 125 ) 
 
 " of all the fresh life of the Reformation, so the principle of 
 " a historical treatment of Scripture is at the bottom the principle 
 " of the whole Reformation-Theology." (p. 247.) 
 So there are two sides to Biblical Records : 
 
 (1) "They are historical documents, subject to the ordinary 
 career of historical research." 
 
 (2) " They are the medium, whereby the Personal God reveals 
 Himself to His people." 
 
 Calvin and the other Reformers held firmly by the doctrine of 
 the witness of the Spirit, yet they treated the Record with 
 boldness. Calvin speaks out boldly, that in Matthew, xxvii, 9, 
 the attribution of the prophesy of the 30 pieces of silver to 
 Jeremiah instead of Zedekiah was an error (p. 249). 
 
 We must distinguish between the Record, that is to say the 
 sheets of paper and vellum covered with writing, and the Divine 
 communication of God's heart and will, which the Record 
 conveys (p. 250). 
 
 "The Revelation of God's will is a Spiritual manifestation of 
 " a Supernatural reality to be apprehended by Faith ; but the 
 " witness of the Spirit does not attach to the outward Characters 
 " of the Record." (pp. 256, 257.) 
 
 " In outward form the Scripture is like other Human writings ; 
 " the Supernatural reality is incased in Human realities : to 
 " apprehend the former, the use of Faith enlightened by the 
 " Holy Spirit is necessary : with regard to the historical credi- 
 " biiity of Scripture, it is sufficient to use the ordinary methods of 
 " Research. It is not a matter of Faith, when the Books were 
 " written, by whom, in what style, or how often they were 
 " edited or re-edited ; it is not a matter of Faith whether 
 " incidents happened in one century or another, whether Job 
 " is a history or a poem : all such things belong to the Human 
 " side of the Record. The Bible is part of Human literature 
 " as well as the Record of Divine Revelation. It is our duty 
 " to examine it as literature, and to determine all its Human 
 " and literary characteristics by the same methods as are applied 
 " to the analysis of other ancient Books." (pp. 258, 259.) 
 
 "The value of the Bible is not affected by the fact, that the 
 " Text, as we now have it (after the lapse of ignorant centuries), 
 " contains some marks of Human imperfection, some verbal 
 " and historical errors." (p. 260.) 
 
 " The Bible is a direct gift of God to us ; it is not a mere 
 " inheritance from the earlier Church : God has employed a series 
 " of Human agencies, and in the use of these agencies has not 
 " excluded every Human imperfection." (p. 260.) 
 
 " The Evangelicals have used typology as freely as the mediaeval 
 " Theologians employed the fourfold sense, extracting truths 
 " from the description of the Temple and its functions.
 
 ( 126 ) 
 
 " The Broad Church distinguished clearly betwixt the Word 
 " of God contained in the Scripture, and the Scripture, the 
 " Record of that Word, and they went further and declared, 
 " that those parts of the Scripture, which did not appear to 
 " them to be Divine utterances, were not the word of God, 
 " thus leading to the conclusion that part of the Scripture 
 " was, and part was not, the Word of God." (p. 263.) 
 
 D. Description of the Sacred Books. 
 
 Let us consider what are these Sacred Books : they divide 
 themselves into two classes: 
 
 A. The contemporary Written Records. 
 
 B. Poetical and Philosophic Works of a later date. 
 
 A. Here a second division introduces itself: 
 
 I. Dead Religious conceptions. 
 II. Living Religious conceptions. 
 
 I. Records of Dead Religious conceptions have come down 
 to us from 
 
 (1) The Egyptians. 
 
 (2) The Assyrians. 
 
 (3) The Babylonians. 
 
 II. Records of Living Religious conceptions have come down 
 to us from 
 
 (1) The Zoroastrian. 
 
 (2) The Brahmanical. 
 
 (3) The Hebrew. 
 
 (4) The Buddhist. 
 
 (5) The Confucianist. 
 
 (6) The Taouist. 
 
 (7) The Jainist. 
 
 (8) The Mahometan, long after Anno Domini. 
 
 B. Poetic and Philosophic Works of a later date. 
 
 The Grseco-Roman cults were represented by no Writings, to 
 which the name of Sacred Books could be applied, but a clear 
 idea of the nature of that cult can be formed from the great 
 Dramatic, and Poetic, and Philosophic Works, which have 
 survived of the great literatures of those countries. 
 
 It lies outside the purport of this Essay to do more than 
 allude to the wonderful Writings, which Science in the last half
 
 ( 127 ) 
 
 century has revealed to us, copies of Inscriptions on tablets, 
 and burnt bricks, Manuscripts on Papyrus, Parchment, and the 
 Talipat Leaf : it seems incredible, if it were not a fact : in the 
 case of the stone and brick survivals of the ravages of centuries, 
 we can handle and see. Professor Sayce writes : " In these 
 " late years Chaldea has given up its ancient stores of know- 
 " ledge : it seems not without design, that, when temple and 
 " tower went to the ground, the Sacred Books of the early and 
 " forgotten Nations should have survived, carved in stone, or 
 " in burnt-clay bricks: they are of three kinds: (i) magical 
 " texts, (2) hymns of a spiritual character, (3) penitential 
 " psalms ; and in two Languages : the non-Arian Akkadian, and 
 " the Semitic-Assyrian : this was the Babylonian Bible in the 
 " time of Nebuchadnezzar" (Religion of Babylon, p. 313). 
 
 Some analogies arise betwixt the handling of these ancient 
 books by their successors. Kong-Fu-Tsee arranged, annotated, 
 and edited, with possible improvements from his point of view, 
 the old Religious Books of the Chinese, known as the King, 
 just as Ezra edited such books of the Old Testament as came 
 back with the Exiles from Babylon (Legge's Religion of China). 
 At a certain period in the long History of India, Manu codified 
 the laws of the Indian Nation, very much as Ezra codified the 
 unwritten laws of the Hebrew Nation, which we know as the 
 Priestly Code : there was no idea of forgery, or imposition : 
 they considered, that they were doing a good service in 
 developing, and arranging, on scientific orderly plans the 
 scattered effusions of their predecessors, who lived in a non- 
 literary age. 
 
 The writers of those remote years were not without a deep 
 spiritual undertone : in the Bhagavadgita, of the Sankya School 
 of Hindu Philosophy, " the duty and necessity are put neatly 
 " before us of living in the world, but not of the world, of 
 " keeping our hearts free from overpowering interest in the 
 " world, of fixing our love on the Supreme Being; we should 
 " do our duty in the world, and yet morally renounce the world 
 " by rejecting all its fascinations " (Thompson's Edition, cxxxi). 
 
 In past History there are only two Nations, who developed 
 a real Philosophy, that is to say "a desire for knowledge," the 
 Indian and the Greek : at a given moment in their History, 
 they produced a class of men with leisure, knowledge of the 
 phenomena of their environment, intellect, and a desire to 
 think out the origin of the phenomena of the world around 
 them, which consisted of Self, other living creatures, and the 
 great unknown Common Cause : their search was that of 
 observation, comparison, introspection : the questions pro- 
 pounded for solution were, What am I ? where am I ? whither 
 am I going ?
 
 ( 128 ) 
 
 YloT/^evo^ai ; Tti'o? ci/m ; t<'/'09 yapiv rjXOov, innfXGov ; 
 
 These questions, in spite of all the babbling in thousands of 
 pulpits, have never yet been answered. The teachers of the 
 people used then to be the wisest : it is the absence of wisdom, 
 which now qualifies : a genius in Church-circles would get no 
 quarter. 
 
 Buddha, Socrates, and One greater than they, left behind 
 them not one single autograph word. What we know of them 
 is from the pen of devoted followers, but it is difficult to free 
 the mind from the conviction that the great Story expanded itself 
 as time went on, that John the Evangelist had, after an interval 
 of forty years, reached an Intellectual epoch far beyond the three 
 elder Evangelists, just as Plato, who lived fifty years after the 
 death of Socrates, idealized his Master by putting into his 
 mouth the magnificent outcome of his own genius, which had 
 advanced with an advancing age ; as to Buddha, we know little 
 for certain, though much has been written. This fact marks 
 distinctly how the age had advanced in a literary conscience, 
 that the followers of Mahomet, immediately after his death, 
 a.d. 632, collected all the scattered fragments of his autograph 
 writings, copied them all out in one authorized copy, and 
 destroyed everything else : if there be anything false in the 
 Koran, it is the falsehood of the epoch of Mahomet, not 
 the accrescence of his credulous successors. It seems strange 
 that Matthew makes no mention of the raising of Lazarus, of 
 which he was an eye-witness. But for John, forty years later, we 
 should never have heard of this great Miracle performed in the 
 near neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and in the presence of Jews, 
 who at once reported the matter to the Chief Priests. 
 
 Mr. Grote, the historian, justly remarked with regard to 
 Greece, "that we possess only what has drifted ashore from the 
 wreck of a stranded vessel," and the wreck has only given up 
 fragments, or planks of Knowledge, bit by bit during the long 
 course of centuries. It is a notable fact, that the Greeks, 
 occupied though they were with speculation on Divine things, 
 left no so-called Sacred Texts, to which reference could be 
 made. Avowedly Hesiod and Homer were the first setters forth 
 of their Theology, till the time came when Socrates acted as 
 a dissolvent of cherished but archaic Ideas, and brought alleged 
 Miracles to the cold ordeal of Reason : they disappeared, and 
 were not kept in a galvanized life like the Miracles recorded 
 in the Asiatic Sacred Books, written long before the age of 
 Criticism. 
 
 The supercilious Greek and Roman held that their geo- 
 graphical environment represented the world ; their conception
 
 ( 129 ) 
 
 of the Orient ceased to extend beyond the Euphrates : the 
 March of Alexander to the Hyphasis was relegated to the same 
 class of events as the voyage of Jason for the Golden Fleece, 
 and the Siege of Troy. The convenient term Bupfiupoi 
 comprised all the Millions of the population of the world, 
 except the Region, of which the Mediterranean Sea was the 
 centre : India and China, with half the population of the world, 
 sate haughtily apart. Now that the whole surface of the 
 Globe is known, we feel how narrow were the Ideas of the 
 Roman and Greek writers as regards to spiritual as well as 
 material things. The Hebrews, if we can judge from the lists 
 of Nations, against whom curses were launched, had a still 
 narrower geographical horizon, and called all the other Nations 
 "Goi." 
 
 The beautiful Poem of the yEneid may well be called The 
 Bible of the Romans : it is made up of Miracles, Prophecies, 
 the interference in Human affairs of the Immortals, the anger 
 and the kind favour of the individual members of the 
 Immortals, Signs from Heaven, Prayer, Sacrifices, Dreams, 
 Visions, Theophanies, and the conception of a Future State, 
 accompanied by Rewards and Punishments : throughout the 
 great principle inculcated is obedience to the Gods, and Virtue, 
 Chastity, Monogamy, and Family-Duties. 
 
 I really feel afraid to express my own opinions in my own 
 words, so I quote those of Bishop Westcott : 
 
 " The Poems of Homer were, as it were, a Bible to the 
 " Athenian people : everyone was more or less familiar with 
 " their contents, and derived from them the general view of 
 " the relations of God to man, of the Seen and the Unseen, 
 " which form the background to the common prospect of 
 " Life." (Religious Thoughts of the West, p. 101.) 
 
 " The myths of Plato transcend the dominion of pure Reason : 
 " they answer to Revelation as an endeavour to enrich the 
 " store of Human Knowledge, and to the Gospel as an en- 
 " deavour to present, under the form of facts, the manifestation 
 " of Divine Wisdom." {Ibid., p. 48.) 
 
 What can more convince us that the Fulness of Time was 
 at hand ? Poor Human reason had, in the speculations of the 
 Indian and Greek Seekers after God, gone as far as finite 
 faculties would permit. 
 
 The same kind of tender feeling towards Virgil was enter- 
 tained in the early centuries of Christianity : Paul landed at 
 Appii Forum, and in his walk to Neapolis must have passed 
 over the heights of Posilippo, now pierced by a tunnel ; 
 in this journey he would have passed within touch of the grave 
 and monument of Virgil, who had died about half a century 
 before his arrival. A Monkish poem in Latin describes how
 
 ( 130 ) 
 
 pleased Paul would have been to have met Virgil, and conversed 
 with him, had he arrived a few years earlier : 
 
 " Ad Virgilii Mausoleum 
 " Ductus, fudit super eum 
 
 " Pice rorem lacrymce. 
 " ' Qualem,' dixit, te fecissem 
 " Si te vivum invenissem, 
 
 " Poetarum maxime ! " 
 
 The Divine light, as it were, shone through the Human garment 
 of words and sentences in these ancient Books. Round the 
 Divine germ the Human writer threw the hard husk of his own 
 individuality, his degree of culture, his idea of decency and 
 literary fitness, the atmosphere of the environment, in which he 
 moved ; and centuries later someone moving in a totally different 
 environment, with different tastes, experiences, and culture, took 
 up the old Manuscript, and presumed to manipulate it, bringing 
 it down to the level of a later age. 
 
 The Hebrew Books had this advantage over the Zend, 
 Indian, and the Books of the extreme Orient, that Palestine 
 was geographically situated on the frontier of the Kingdom of 
 Socrates and Plato, and by a literary fancy of a Greek 
 Monarch of Egypt was transferred from its own Semitic garb 
 into one of the two greatest vehicles of Human Ideas, Greek, 
 and Sanskrit. Six hundred years later one of the ablest and 
 most devoted of translators, Jerome, transferred them from the 
 original Hebrew into the great reservoir of European idioms, 
 the Latin Language, then on the eve of extinction. For one 
 thousand years it remained in a comatose state till Erasmus 
 came, and with him the new Idea, the new mechanism of the 
 Printing-Press, and the downfall of Priestcraft. Many a good 
 soul of that period resented the idea of the Sacred Books being 
 transferred into an unsanctified Vernacular, and kicked against 
 Erasmus and his notions, as they do now against the Higher 
 Criticism. During those long centuries the other Sacred Books 
 of the Ancient World had been shrouded from the knowledge 
 of the followers of the Religious conception, and all outsiders. 
 
 E. Was there a Divine Afflatus ? 
 
 An accomplished writer has written as follows : " In all ages 
 " there have been enthusiasts : the Hebrew Prophets were so ; 
 " the men in after ages, canonized as Saints, were so : there 
 " are certain minds capable of penetrating the uselessness of
 
 ( 131 ) 
 
 " a purely worldly existence, and, finding it hard to live a 
 " double life, one material, the other spiritual, seek refuge in 
 " seclusion, and leave the outer world to those, whom it suits 
 " and satisfies." 
 
 The narrow vision of the writer could not get beyond the 
 Hebrew and Christian Books ; we know that the same features 
 are evident in the other Sacred Books, and that the same 
 Afflatus was distinctly claimed for the Veda by the Brahmins, 
 and, if not claimed for the writings of Buddha and Kong-Fu- 
 Tsee, it was because, in a system, where no God was recognised, 
 the word 6ecnrvev<no<s could not apply, but the presence of 
 something superhuman was recognised in the matter and style 
 of the Books written. 
 
 The Holy Spirit existed from the time of the Creation of the 
 World, striving with man (Genesis, vi, 3) long before the Hebrew 
 Race came into existence, and its power cannot be limited by 
 time, clime, or Human conditions. It sometimes has ap- 
 proached an individual, as the Eunuch of Queen Kandace, or 
 a family, such as that of the Centurion Cornelius, or an assembly 
 of holy persons, such as met on the day of Pentecost, or a 
 Nation, when they come out and serve God. Its mode of 
 action is not limited also : it may come by word of mouth, by 
 inscribed tablet, or written document, by the example of a holy 
 life, round which the aureole of entire self-sacrifice sheds its 
 light, such as the life of Buddha, who neither worked a miracle, 
 nor penned a line, or by a stroke of affliction, sickness, or death. 
 It may come to the believer by a dream in the night, by a vision 
 in the day, by a chance utterance overheard in a crowd, or a line 
 read in some writing. Even so the Holy Spirit may humbly 
 be believed to have spoken to God's poor creatures made in 
 His own image, endowed with a capacity of uttering articulate 
 sounds, and congenitally endowed with the Religious instinct 
 from the beginning of the world, even as he speaks now to man 
 in an unmistakable manner, if the din of the world, the carnality 
 of the flesh, the careless state of mind, the life of sinfulness, 
 permit His poor creatures to hear. Socrates was persuaded, 
 that he had a high Religious Mission to fulfil, and that a Divine 
 Power, called by him ^.aifiwv, controlled him, and no doubt his 
 feeling was a true one. The Holy Spirit was with him. 
 
 No doubt the Hindu has always thought, and thinks still, 
 that the Veda was composed and written in Heaven, and com- 
 prises all knowledge, past, present, and future. The Mahometan 
 asserts, that the Koran came down from Heaven in its different 
 chapters, and is the " kalam illah," the Word of God. These 
 two Religious conceptions are believed in by Millions to the 
 present day. Want of vitality and long life cannot be charged 
 against them : but let us cast our eyes back for some five
 
 ( 132 ) 
 
 thousand years, or more, and read what the mummy-pits have 
 revealed to us : 
 
 " The Egyptian Religion, which in its wonderful Book of the 
 " Dead gives the oldest, and one of the most trustworthy, 
 " accounts of primitive belief, expresses very clearly the hopes 
 " and fears of the Egyptians with reference to the world 
 " beyond the grave. The Book of the Dead was considered by 
 " the Egyptians as an inspired work. It is Thoth himself, who 
 " speaks and reveals the will of the gods, and the mysterious 
 " nature of Divine things to man. Portions of the book are 
 " expressly stated to have been written by the very finger of 
 " Thoth, and to have been 'the composition of a great god.' 
 
 " The Book of the Dead gives us the completest account of 
 " primitive belief. We learn from this remarkable book, that 
 " the standard of morality among the ancient Egyptians was 
 " very high. ' Not one of the Christian virtues,' writes 
 " Chabas, ' is forgotten in the Egyptian code : piety, charity, 
 " ' gentleness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the 
 " ' protection of the weak, benevolence towards the needy, 
 " ' deference to superiors, respect for property in its minutest 
 " ' details,' etc. It shows that thousands of years before 
 " Christ, the Egyptians held lofty conceptions of the Deity; 
 " that they believed in one God, self-existent and omnipotent ; 
 " and that their moral ideas were of the purest and best." 
 
 Certain members of the Christian Community choose to 
 attribute all the Sacred Books of Antiquity, except those of 
 the Jews, to Satan, with whose habits and machinations 
 they are somehow or other so familiar ; but the moral tone of 
 these books, and occasionally a spiritual light, must disabuse 
 all careful thinkers of such a notion : that they should have 
 been preserved in such different ways, and revealed to this 
 century in such a wonderful manner, seems to mark the 
 presence of the Almighty in this and in all past ages. These 
 revelations escaped the eyes of the Greeks and Latins in the 
 plenitude of their intellectual Powers, and have been made 
 known to this generation, presumably because it is prepared 
 and qualified to make a proper use of this knowledge, which 
 appears to justify the ways of God to men. 
 
 The genuine, the abiding, the inestimable, value of the 
 Sacred Books, and Inscriptions, however recorded, by men of 
 Ancient Days before the great Anno Domini, is sadly diminished 
 by the pseudo-halo flung round them, and claims made on their 
 behalf, by one-eyed pious men, who neither look round the 
 world, nor can take in the fact, that God in sundry times and 
 divers manners spake to past ages, as He speaks to us now. 
 These priceless survivals of men, whose names are forgotten, 
 remind us, that men were men in those days such as we are
 
 ( 133 ) 
 
 now, that they had reached a certain standard of Human 
 knowledge, and a consciousness of the existence of God. 
 
 The traditional conception of verbal or plenary Inspiration 
 I reverently lay aside ; the men were inspired, not the Books. 
 It may not be true, as all will admit, with regard to the 
 Zoroastrian, Brahmanical, or Mahometan Books : this is 
 admitted, because no one in Europe believes in those Religious 
 conceptions; but a priori it is just as reasonable a theory, 
 that the Ruler of the Universe should make himself known 
 to the Millions of East Asia as to the tiny tribes of the 
 Hebrews. Such notions do not belong to the present Epoch ; 
 we do not believe things because they come down to us as 
 our inheritance from a credulous age. Professor Sandey, in 
 his Bampton-Lecture, 1892, p. 424, sums up the argument 
 with great caution : let us think it out : the Old Testament 
 consists of 39 books, which are admitted by Hebrew and 
 Christian authorities to belong to dates betwixt 800 B.C. and 
 350 B.C., or even later. The books of the Apocrypha may date 
 as far down as 10 A.D. : they relate to different subjects, some 
 of the highest possible interest to Human conception, some 
 to mere traditions, misconceptions, or positive inaccuracies. 
 Centuries ago allegory was allowed full play : that license is 
 no longer allowed ; we accept words in the meaning, which 
 they are shown to bear, and one meaning only, and no more: 
 all beyond is mere pious trifling. 
 
 Admitting that we have a fairly correct text, which is at once 
 an assumption, and a reminder, that our treasure is in earthen 
 vessels, the Human conception of sounds, words, and sentences, 
 the treacherous pitfalls of dialects, and Written Characters, the 
 quicksands of copyist, and editorial, license; we have to dis- 
 criminate the passages which are totally void of Inspiration, 
 from those with different degrees of Inspiration, remembering 
 that no Prophecy is of private interpretation, and that it is 
 not legitimate, or even honest, to read into passages with an 
 obvious meaning the thoughts of subsequent generations and 
 centuries. 
 
 We cannot read a line even of the Prophet Isaiah without 
 feeling, that we are dealing with Human, very Human, 
 sentences, words, and Ideas : we see a great deal of ex- 
 aggeration, grossness of expression, illustrations void of good 
 taste, gross ignorance of Geography, History, and Physical 
 Science. 
 
 The non-Christian Sacred Books must be submitted to the 
 same criticism : to say that they were intentional falsehoods 
 is to fall into the same manifest error, as the one complained 
 of above, but there will be found a residuum, which carries in 
 itself a plain testimony, that the Message is more than
 
 ( 134 ) 
 
 Human, not necessarily prediction, but advice, warning, 
 promises. Prediction is not the true, or only, meaning of the 
 word Prophecy. In the Edict of Cyrus (II Chronicles, xxxvi, 22) 
 we read, "Thus saith Cyrus the king" ; in the Behistun tablets 
 every verse begins, "Darius the king said": it was a common 
 form. In some Meetings certain Sects commence their 
 remarks with a conventional phrase: "the Spirit moves me." 
 Stress cannot be laid on the repetition by the Prophets of 
 the words, " The Lord said " ; it is repeated too often to have 
 any evidential value. When Paul, five centuries later, used 
 analogous expressions, he carefully distinguishes what the Holy 
 Spirit had taught him to say, from the thoughts and words, 
 which were based on his own Human experience. 
 
 There is also another reason why a Divine Afflatus is always 
 claimed by the announcers of a new Religious conception, or 
 a new departure in an old one, for each enthusiast desires to 
 cut all connection with the Past, and gives out that he has a 
 new Heaven-sent Revelation to bring: so did Buddha, so twelve 
 centuries later Mahomet, so the mediaeval Saints, or Apostles of 
 Rome, so the Mormonite, and Theosophist of this period, John 
 Smith, and Madame Blavaski. The same necessity presses on 
 all, who attempt to deal with matters of Faith, which is 
 not seen. 
 
 In I Chronicles, xxviii, 19, we read with astonishment the 
 following words : " All this, said David, the Lord made me 
 understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works 
 of this pattern." 
 
 The Septuagint renders it thus : 
 
 " eV f/pa(pij ^eipos Kvpiov. 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar in the Expositor's Bible, I Kings, p. 150, 
 calls this " an amazing hyperbole" : it is just what the Hindu and 
 Mahometan claim for their Scriptures. The Chronicler lived 
 seven hundred years after the death of David. The destruction 
 of Jerusalem and the long Exile had taken place intermediately. 
 Those, who argue for plenary Inspiration, must consider what 
 an abyss of Human possibilities, and insufficiencies, they have 
 to span : a chain is not stronger than the weakest link, and we 
 have all the links of tradition, evidence in every stage, dangers 
 to which all writings are exposed. Admitted that the Spirit 
 of the Lord still speaks to man's Soul. in present days, as in 
 years gone by ; admitted that Miracles were performed in the 
 years, which elapsed betwixt Moses and the date of the taking 
 of Jerusalem by Titus, in one narrow strip of land in Asia, and 
 there and there only : we have still to depend on the Record 
 of these wonderful events : and this is the weakest link.
 
 ( 135 ) 
 
 The Hindu and Mahometan got over the difficulty, and 
 declared, that the Veda and Koran were composed and written 
 in Heaven, and are independent of all Human agencies. We 
 do not assert that, but trust our faith to the dogma, that God 
 spoke by His Prophets, and they made use of their material 
 environment to communicate the word of God, dabar Yahveh, to 
 future generations. 
 
 It is all very well for a Pope, who declares himself to be 
 Infallible, to cry out: "Semper, Ubique, ab omnibus": these 
 words did very well for the Middle Ages: they knew nothing 
 of History: this qualified "Semper"; they knew nothing of 
 Geography, which took away the meaning of "Ubique"; and 
 they had no conception of the population of the world, so 
 there was absolutely no meaning in " ab omnibus," unless 
 they meant their own precious selves : all this is known now. 
 
 F. Blemishes in lite?-ary style of the Books. 
 
 In all the Sacred Books there are the great blemishes of 
 vague terms, poetical expressions, phrases capable of ambiguous 
 interpretation, or from which no meaning can be extracted at 
 all, gross and filthy stories, introduced for no purpose. It 
 appears sometimes, as if the writer did not clearly know what 
 he wished to say, or that his amanuensis had misunderstood 
 him, or copyists had corrupted the Text. This gave scope to 
 ignorant, and sensational, readers of after ages to make private 
 interpretations to suit their own views, and to import into the 
 Text imaginary allusions, and unjustifiable deductions. Clearly 
 none of the Sacred Books, without exception, form any sure 
 base for History. 
 
 No impartial observer can fail to remark, that there is a strain 
 of exaggeration running through the whole, and that there 
 were none of the salutary checks of Criticism, and Reviews : 
 temptations are idealized into a personal evil spirit, called 
 Satan, and a thought suggested to the Soul is magnified into 
 a Heavenly Message ; the phraseology is often most lax, the 
 figures of speech most unsuitable : why is Idolatry described 
 so often in the Hebrew Books as " whoredom," to which 
 sin it can have no possible relation or resemblance ? Ample 
 allowance must be made for exaggeration, poetical phrases, 
 the excited state of the writer, the credulity of the people, 
 and the sheer ignorance both of writer and reader : modern 
 thought is more logical ; modern experience is more accurate. 
 
 Take, for instance, a verse which appears twice in the Old 
 Testament, the last verse of the last chapter of II Chronicles, 
 and the second verse of the first chapter of Ezra:
 
 ( 136 ) 
 
 " Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia, the Lord God of Heaven 
 hath given me the Kingdoms of the Earth." We remark here, 
 first, that the Hebrews admit, when it suited them, that the Ruler 
 of the Universe made communications to Zoroastrians, and 
 that Zoroastrians recognised such communications ; secondly, 
 that Cyrus speaks as Lord of the Kingdoms of the Earth. What 
 would the Sovereigns of India and the Extreme Orient of the 
 time have said to this claim of universal Sovereignty ? We know 
 that Egypt was not conquered till the time of Cambyses, 
 successor to Cyrus, and that Greece was never conquered by 
 Darius, the successor to Cambyses. Rome would have laughed 
 even then at the idea of being subject to Persia: in fact, it 
 was gross exaggeration ; it must be admitted, that many 
 utterances cannot be taken in their strict verbal meaning. 
 
 People write about the peculiarities of Oriental Nations : 
 they do exist, but at present not to the extent to which they 
 once existed. It is impossible to avoid seeing, that the Sacred 
 Books of the East were written in an exaggerated, hyperbolic, 
 and highly poetic, style which would be impossible in the 
 present time. The importance of the Kingdom, and the wealth, 
 greatness, and worth, of its Sovereign, the size of his armies, 
 the number of men killed in battles, are quite beyond the 
 control of Criticism. The whole Earth is spoken of by 
 persons, who had the most limited knowledge of Geography; 
 appeals are made to History by persons, who knew no 
 History, and had no standard of comparison. 
 
 The Sovereign of Egypt, seated on the throne of Horus, 
 claimed authority over all the Nations of the world. " All 
 Nations are subject to me," said Queen Hatasu on her great 
 obelisk at Karnak ; " God has handed over the whole circuit 
 of the Sun to me" (Renouf: Hibbert-Lectures, p. 162). Egypt 
 was a great, rich, conquering Power, which lasted for centuries, 
 and was able to raise up Monuments, which will last all time ; 
 still it used such rhodomontade, and similar expressions are 
 used with regard to Solomon's petty Kingdom, which broke in 
 half after his death. 
 
 No doubt Poetical rhapsody is the cause of much exaggeration 
 of expression : the ideal is seized, and intertwined with all that 
 is the tribal, and national, and domestic, tradition of the past, 
 becomes amplified, and egoistic national pride caused it to 
 grow from generation to generation : the Hebrew really 
 believed that Solomon was a great and powerful king : we can 
 see clearly, that he was only a petty Rajah, who would not have 
 been thought much of in India in past or present times, as his 
 territory was so small, and his resources so limited by the 
 poverty of his country. 
 
 The account of the death of Buddha, as given in the Pftaka
 
 ( 137 ) 
 
 (Journal of R.A.S., N.S., vii, viii), seems much exaggerated : 
 long sermons are ascribed to Buddha in extreme old age just 
 before he died : they were probably composed by the 
 Chronicler, and included much, that was said in former years 
 rather than at that time: the facts are no doubt true: we see 
 an analogy in this in the three chapters of teaching introduced 
 by John the Evangelist into the narrative of the Last Supper, 
 which are not alluded to by the Synoptists. 
 
 When Krishna was in the chariot with A'rjuna, he bade his 
 companion look into his throat, and there he saw the whole 
 world, all mankind, Heaven, and all the gods. The same may 
 be said of the Incriptions of the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 Monarch : great allowance must be made for this feature in 
 ancient prose, and poetical, literature of every kind, sacred or 
 profane. 
 
 It is difficult to realize the gross ignorance of Geography, 
 Language, Ethnology, general Science, of the Nations of that 
 time ; and in weighing the comparative value of their writings, 
 this element must be considered : they were credulous to an 
 enormous extent : the basin of the Mediterranean was very 
 nearly the whole world to the Nations, which had access to 
 it : two-thirds of the Human Race in India and the extreme 
 Orient were utterly unknown to the people of Western Asia, 
 and to the people of Eastern Asia there was equal ignorance 
 of the Western Nations : that the Earth was a revolving globe, 
 and was not the centre of the Universe, was of course beyond 
 their wildest conception. In estimating the value of their 
 statements on the subjects of things spiritual, it must not be 
 forgotten, how grossly ignorant the wisest of them were of 
 things material. 
 
 Take, for instance, the characters of David and Solomon as 
 delineated in the Books of Samuel and Kings, written about 
 600 B.C., and the Book of Chronicles, written about 350 B.C., 
 with an interval of two hundred and fifty years betwixt the two 
 periods. The intelligence, the manners, the religious and social 
 sentiments of the Hebrews, had changed ; all hope of political 
 independence, all prophetic visions and inspirations, had passed 
 away, when the nameless Levite undertook to write an account 
 of the Hebrew Nation, commencing with Adam and ending with 
 Cyrus, the king of Persia, a period of 3500 years according 
 to Archbishop Usher, and of" 8000 years according to all 
 reasonable inductions from actual facts of Egyptian and 
 Mesopotamian History. 
 
 We have only to imagine the Chaplain of the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, or a minor Canon of St. Paul's, undertaking 
 to write the History of the Church in Britain from the days 
 of the foundation of the City of Rome till now. The Levite
 
 ( 138 ) 
 
 could only draw on the manners and customs of the Jews, as he 
 saw them : he had formed high idealistic conceptions of David 
 as the warrior king, and Solomon as the philosopher king, of 
 Israel ; he had no idea of the size of the great world, of the 
 Millions of India and China, of the wealth there accumulated. 
 The Kings of Israel were of about the same calibre as the Kings 
 of Kashmir, with little or no commerce with the outer world, 
 but maintaining a precarious existence at the mercy of the 
 Sovereigns of the Kingdoms of Egypt and Mesopotamia : yet 
 he describes them as the most powerful and wealthy of all the 
 earth, " kul he aratz" (II Chronicles, ix, 23): "And all the kings 
 of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his 
 wisdom " : he was a barbarous Sovereign of a barbarous people, 
 the son of a king who had risen from the sheep-folds : 
 it is doubtful, whether in his reign the art of writing alpha- 
 betically had been attained either on stone, brick, parchment, 
 or papyrus ; at any rate, the oldest survival of the Phenician 
 Alphabet is 200 years later: at the time when the Kings of 
 Egypt and Mesopotamia were erecting Monuments with Inscrip- 
 tions in Hieroglyphics, or Cuneiform characters, King Solomon 
 left nothing, nothing at all, most probably because he was not 
 up to that level of. culture, very much as the Afghan Chiefs 
 of the Indian frontier at the present moment are not abreast 
 with the culture of their neighbours Russia and British India, 
 otherwise his Egyptian wife might have enabled him to do 
 something, and his friend, King Hiram of Tyre, in whose 
 dominions the Alphabetic Character was being worked out 
 about that period, would have supplied skilled lapidary 
 workmen. 
 
 The Levite, who wrote the Chronicles, assumes, that David 
 wrote the Psalms, and Solomon the books attributed to him : 
 this may be questioned. The Levite had arrived at a standard 
 of holiness, outward holiness, to which neither David nor 
 Solomon reached : he shrank from recapitulating the assassina- 
 tions, which took place by the order of King Solomon, according 
 to the last testament of his father King David ; he makes no 
 allusion to their gross immoralities, and the very name of 
 Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, is not totidem verbis mentioned : 
 Solomon is described as having only one wife, because the 
 Jews on their return from exile had become strictly 
 monogamist, and the idea of a harem would have been as 
 offensive to the Levite, as to a Clergyman of the Nineteenth 
 Century. How unfortunate for these two Kings it has been, 
 that the two Books of Samuel and Kings did not go the way 
 of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, and the Book of 
 the War, and the Book of Jasher, and the other Hebrew 
 Documents of the pre-Exilic period, which perished in that
 
 ( 139 ) 
 
 great catastrophe. How different would have been their 
 characters ! 
 
 Supposing that we were now on the same intellectual and 
 literary platform as the Levite, who wrote the Chronicles, and a 
 Protestant Levite of an amiable and holy character and life, 
 but devoid of any sense of historical truth, were to undertake to 
 write the Chronicles of King Henry YIII of England : the 
 writer would no doubt idealize the King, who broke the bonds 
 of Rome, would omit all allusion to his brutal treatment of his 
 wives, his judicial murder of several of his most noble subjects, 
 his confiscation of Church-property, and distribution of it among 
 his favourites : he would be painted as an able and patriotic and 
 wise king, who did his country excellent service : his crimes 
 were such as would be deemed impossible in the Victorian Era, 
 and the pious Chronicler could not imagine his ideal hero 
 acting in any other way than as a noble Christian : the Hebrew 
 Chronicler has depicted David and Solomon with the same 
 sympathetic, but strangely untrue, manner, if the Books of 
 Samuel and Kings are to be trusted. 
 
 2. Oral: Tradition. 
 
 It is difficult to define the boundary, which divides History 
 as a Science, from Legend, of the Family, of the Nation, and 
 of the Religion. Even in this hard matter of fact age men 
 treasure up as quasi-truths, Reports complimentary to their 
 Families, their Country, and falling in with their Religious 
 conceptions ; but it is Faith, not evidence, on which they 
 rely ; such Legends relate generally to a remote and obscure 
 past. The modern Legend is merely told without regard to 
 exactness, but the handers down of the old Legends were men 
 honest and good, worthy of our respect, but unskilled in the 
 law of evidence, and very credulous. How often we hear 
 people dilate on the beauty, talents, and piety, of their great 
 grandmother, or of some remote ancestor! How from time to 
 time springs up a National Hero, decked in feathers not his 
 own ! My remark may seem cynical, but the fact is, Truth 
 and Untruth are hopelessly blended ; there is a residuum of 
 Truth in most narratives forming a base for large romantic 
 developments. We see it in a marked degree, where Religious 
 fervour, and holy men and women, are concerned. The 
 number of believers in the Legend is no argument; so much 
 the worse for the Truth, when all believe in it, and it bears in 
 itself the unmistakable evidence of Falsehood. We must place 
 it reverently aside, especially when it comes to us as a legacy
 
 ( HO ) 
 
 from men in an early state of low culture ; it might have 
 developed into a great Legend, and been honoured by an epic 
 poem. The raw material has reached us, and we must not 
 despise it ; we trace it back to a simple-minded period, very 
 credulous, very ignorant of the world, delighting in the 
 marvellous, full of reverence to their ancestors, and the great 
 unknown Power, ready to believe anything ; the more marvellous 
 the more acceptable. 
 
 Professor Max Miiller remarks on the Myths and Songs of 
 the South Pacific : " They contain much, that will deeply 
 " interest all those, who have learned to sympathize with the 
 " childhood of the world, and have not forgotten, that the 
 "child is father to the man; much, that will startle those, 
 " who think that metaphysical conceptions are incompatible 
 " with downright savagery ; much, that will comfort those, 
 " who hold, that God has not left Himself without a witness 
 " even among the lowest outcasts of the Human Race." 
 
 " The sentiments [of the Vedic Hymns] are childlike, the first 
 " sobbing and plaintive cry of the Human family to their Great 
 " Father, who made them, and to Nature and the Elements, 
 " the great Mother, who nourished them." This was their 
 great environment. (R. N. Cust : Linguistic and Oriental 
 Essays, Series I, p. no, 1878.) 
 
 In all countries, irrespective of, and independent of, the 
 Religious belief of the inhabitants, Legends have been handed 
 down of the origin of the Globe, and of Mankind. Nearly 
 every country has a Legend of the Deluge, localized to their 
 topographical features of mountain and lake, and coloured 
 to suit the intellectual idiosyncrasy of each population. The 
 Legends current in India have long been well-known, but the 
 late discoveries in Mesopotamia go behind the earliest accepted 
 dates of the Old Testament, and the revelations of Geology 
 pierce behind still further. We are on an inclined plane here, 
 and cannot stop. Virgil, in a few lines in the ^Eneid, VI, 724, 
 undertakes to record the current views on this subject in the 
 Augustan age. 
 
 Myths resemble the fogs, which are exhaled in a damp 
 neighbourhood ; they are not, however, to be despised. Myths 
 surrounded the infancy of Sargon, the first king of Babylonia, of 
 Cyrus, king of Persia, and of Buddha ; it was the usual 
 symptom of Oriental flattery, and credulity. Sargon was born 
 of an unknown father, like Romulus, William the Conqueror, 
 and many others ; in the Middle Ages Divine Ancestry was 
 not claimed. Enclosed in a boat, like Danae and Perseus, 
 and Moses, the Euphrates refused to drown young Sargon. 
 Had they lived an obscene life, we should have heard nothing 
 of these interesting details. So many Princes, who died young,
 
 ( 141 ) 
 
 have been glorified, like young Marcellus in the iEneid ; had 
 they lived on, they might have developed into a Nero. 
 
 The author of the " Unknown God," Mr. Loring Brace, 
 p. 109, remarks as follows: 
 
 " The position of such deep thinkers as Socrates and Plato, 
 " in regard to Greek Mythology, was peculiar. It was not 
 " unlike that of some rationalistic Scholars of this day towards 
 " the Supernaturalism of Christianity. Myths were the poetic 
 " revelations of great Religious facts : the essential in them was 
 " eternally true ; the form imaginary and temporary : Socrates 
 " and Plato would not rudely overthrow even the form : it was 
 " intertwined with morality and devoutness, and should there- 
 " fore be carefully handled : they recognised the popular 
 " Mythology, and used it for their great moral purposes, only 
 " half-believing it, and yet extracting from it Truths, which 
 " were everlasting. But, wherever the Myths represented the 
 " gods as acting contrary to the Eternal Principles of Morality, 
 " they did not hesitate to say, that they were false." 
 
 Legends come down to us of Buddha, not in one universally 
 recognised book, but in various narratives in different countries 
 and Languages. He descended of his own accord, 600 B.C., 
 into his Mother's womb: at his birth Heaven and Earth 
 paid their homage ; Angels sang songs of Victory. His 
 Mother was the best and purest of women, and had no 
 other son : his conception took place without the instru- 
 mentality of his father: he taught his teachers: aged Saints 
 paid him honour. He had a great struggle to free himself 
 from the bondage of this world. Devils came to try him, 
 and fight him ; the powers of Nature were convulsed : 
 meteors fell ; darkness prevailed, as the Sun was obscured ; the 
 Earth with its mountains, and the ocean, were convulsed ; 
 Earthquakes took place, and Rivers flowed back to their source. 
 (Rhys Davids : Buddha, p. 37.) 
 
 There is very little scope for variety in Oriental imagery : 
 something wonderful always takes place as regards the con- 
 ception, or the actual birth, and the same natural phenomena 
 are reported in most striking Language in the Ramayana, when 
 Sita was carried off from her husband Rama: I know nothing 
 so beautiful in any Epic in any Language, as portions of this 
 magnificent Sanskrit Poem. The beautiful Epics in Greek, 
 Latin, and the modern Languages of Europe, are left far 
 behind. 
 
 Of the extent to which fond credulity can be indulged, and 
 of the crave of so-called Religious men to believe in Legends, 
 the Apocryphal Gospels of the childhood of Christ may be 
 cited as an instance. In modern times we know how to 
 appreciate an historical romance, such as those of Sir Walter
 
 ( H2 ) 
 
 Scott, or wonderful stories such as the Arabian Nights, but the 
 composer, and copyist, of false quasi-Religious stories seem 
 worthy of the highest reprobation. The compilers of the 
 marvellous legendary tales, which attached themselves to some 
 Christian Saints, are blameable, but they were only fondly, after 
 the manner of their age, dealing with the incidents of lives of 
 their fellow-men, but the compilers of the Apocryphal Gospels 
 in attaching to the name of Christ tales, which were palpably 
 false, gave a handle, and a good handle, to the unbeliever to 
 throw a doubt on the Gospels. 
 
 Throughout Antiquity there seems to have prevailed a desire 
 to trace back the origin of illustrious men to the Deity: to this 
 day Rajahs in India will without scruple show their pedigrees 
 drawn out through a countless line of ancestors to the Sun and 
 Moon. In the great Epics of Homer and Virgil it is thought 
 nothing wonderful to state, that y£neas was the son of Venus, 
 Achilles of Thetis, and Bacchus and Hercules of Jupiter. 
 Plutarch, in his work on Isis and Osiris, remarks, that at the 
 birth of the latter there were omens, which always precede the 
 birth of Earth's benefactors : a voice was heard announcing 
 " that the Lord of all things had stepped into light." 
 
 (i>9 O 7TUVTWV KVpiO<S CIS 0W? 7TpOrfK9eV. 
 
 (Loring Brace: Unknown God, 1890, p. 21.) 
 
 " It is a side evidence of the spiritual inspiration of ancient 
 " and barbarous Races, that so many, and in all ages, have a 
 " tradition of a moral benefactor of the Race, who came from 
 " above, bore Human ills, sought to scatter happiness among 
 " men, and perhaps perished in the struggle with evil among 
 " men to appear again among the stars, or to await his faithful 
 " followers in the region of the Blessed. The strength, and 
 " purity, which gather round such memories, are the best test 
 " of their reality. And even, if some are only imaginary, the 
 " ideal shows the moral forces working on the hearts of men, 
 " and the Truths, which had here and there dawned upon 
 " them." {Ibid., p. 4.) 
 
 By a singular chance, or more than a chance, the great 
 Indian Religious System presents the conception of the Deity 
 attempting to save mankind by repeated incarnations of himself 
 in the form of animals in the remote past, and, as the centuries 
 went on, in the Human form : in one of the earliest Avatara, 
 or Incarnations, the Deity appears as a fish to save man in a 
 Deluge : other animals succeed : Purus Rama is the first 
 representative of the Human Race, Rama, the son of Dasaratha, 
 the second, and Krishna, the third ; Gautama Buddha is some- 
 times counted as the ninth and last, but there is one still to
 
 ( H3 ) 
 
 come, riding on a horse, when the world comes to an end. 
 The whole story and character of Rama is wonderful in its 
 sublimity and grandeur: the Son of a King, who obeyed his 
 Father's will, and was endowed with the grace of entire Self- 
 Sacrifice, for a given purpose, to save mankind, and conquer the 
 great enemy of mankind. This Legend was current long before 
 the great Anno Domini in Regions out of touch with Palestine. 
 
 In Graeco-Roman Legends we read of the elevation of heroes 
 to the position of demi-gods, for services accomplished: 
 Hercules, Romulus, Castor and Pollux, and the flattery of 
 courtiers added the names of Emperors, such as Julius and 
 Augustus. 
 
 Still more striking is the Legend of Prometheus, who suffered, 
 and suffered patiently, because he desired to benefit the Human 
 Race ; the great tragedy of ^Eschylus gives us an idea of what 
 was thought of him in the palmy days of Athens ; no sublimer 
 conception is handed down to antiquity, unequalled until 
 Socrates calmly sacrificed his life in the interests of Virtue and 
 Morality, and escaped the indignity of being considered a 
 demi-god, for he lived too late to attain that honour, and too 
 early to be made a Saint of by the Vatican. 
 
 There was a great deal of Poetry in the Mythological con- 
 ception of antiquity; a Poet is a creator, vron'jT)^. Daphne 
 unquestionably means the Dawn, which ever seems to fly 
 from the approach of Apollo, the Sun, and dies. The laurel 
 tree in Greek is called cacpvi], and its wood is most easy to 
 burn : this supplies ample materials for the Legend. King 
 Arthur, Jack the Giant-Killer, and the brave Roland, have all 
 mounted the same ladder.
 
 ( H4 ) 
 
 CAP. VI. RELIGIOSITY AND MORALS. 
 
 i. Morality. 
 
 2. Arm of the Flesh. 
 
 3. Fanaticism. 
 
 4. Superstition. 
 
 5. Change of Belief. 
 
 1. Morality. 
 
 Socrates was the first in Europe, who laid down the maxim, 
 that Morality was indispensable to Religion. In Asia, Buddha and 
 Kong-Fu-Tsee, and some of the Brahmanical writers, had done 
 the same. The Christian standard was still higher: "Without 
 Holiness no one can see God." In British India, in a gross 
 case of immorality by a Hindu, who pretended to be an Incar- 
 nation of the Deity, the Judicial Courts laid down a principle, 
 that "nothing could be theologically right, which was morally 
 wrong." 
 
 Nothing is more striking than the entire disrespect shown to 
 women under the Hebrew dispensation : gross Polygamy and 
 Concubinage were practised by David and Solomon, of an 
 unlimited kind, compared to which the Hindu, and Mahometan, 
 appear self- controlled. The slaughter of all the brothers 
 (II Chron. xxi. 4) of the reigning Sovereign was a very ordinary 
 expedient to get rid of possible rivals : a contempt of Human 
 life, and suffering. Saul's widows were handed over to his 
 son-in-law to be concubines, and the Prophet Nathan seems 
 not to have disapproved of it: the marriage of brother and 
 sister seems to have been possible (II Samuel, xiii, 13): as to 
 any marriage ceremony, so important with the Hindu, it was 
 not even thought of: he appropriated her, as if she had been 
 a domestic animal, or a beast of burden. When her husband 
 had been killed, David fetched Bathsheba to his house, and 
 she became his wife, and the mother of the heir to the throne : 
 he had done the same thing to Abigail, the widow of Nabal. No 
 Sultan of a Mahometan Kingdom could have been more un- 
 controlled by Morality. The Gentile world appears to advantage
 
 ( 145 ) 
 
 in the following quotation : " The superior man will watch over 
 " himself, when he is alone: are you free from shame in your 
 " own room, when you are exposed only to the light of Heaven ? " 
 Kong-Fu-Tsee in the She-King (Sacred Anthology, p. 286). 
 
 I add the following quotation from the Dhammapada, as 
 illustrative of Buddhist Morality, 550 B.C.: 
 
 " ' He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed 
 
 me ' : hatred in those, who harbour such thoughts, will never 
 
 cease. 
 
 " ' He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed 
 
 me': hatred in those, who do not harbour such thoughts, 
 
 will cease. 
 
 " For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time ; hatred 
 
 ceases by love : this is an old rule. 
 
 " Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people : 
 
 have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best 
 
 of men. 
 
 " All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death : 
 
 remember that you are like them, and do not kill, nor 
 
 cause slaughter. 
 
 " Do not speak harshly to anybody ; those, who are spoken 
 
 to, will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is 
 
 painful ; blows for blows will touch thee. 
 
 " By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers ; by 
 
 oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity 
 
 and impurity belong to oneself; no one can purify another. 
 
 " Better than sovereignty over the earth, better than going 
 
 to Heaven, better than lordship over the worlds, is the reward 
 
 of the first step in Holiness. 
 
 " Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's 
 
 mind, that is the teaching of the Awakened (Buddha). 
 
 " Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil 
 
 by good ; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar 
 
 by truth ! 
 
 " Many men whose shoulders are covered with the orange 
 
 gown {i.e., are priests) are ill-conditioned and unrestrained; 
 
 such evil-doers by their evil deeds go to hell. 
 
 " A man does not become a Brahmana by his plaited hair, 
 
 by his family, or by both ; in whom there is truth and 
 
 righteousness, he is blessed, he is a Brahmana. 
 
 " What is the use of plaited hair, O fool ! what of the raiment 
 
 of goatskins ? Within thee there is ravening, but the outside 
 
 thou makest clean. 
 
 " He, who is free from anger, dutiful, virtuous, without 
 
 weakness, and subdued, who has received his last body, him 
 
 I call indeed a Brahmana. 
 
 " He, who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with fault- 
 
 10
 
 ( H6 ) 
 
 " finders, free from passion among the passionate, him I call 
 " indeed a Brahmana." 
 
 In the Sanskrit Bhagavadgitawe find the following description 
 of the Friend of God (Sacred Anthology, p. 59): 
 
 " He, my servant, is dear to me, who is free from emnity, the 
 " friend of all Nature, merciful, exempt from pride and selfish- 
 " ness, the same in pain and pleasure, exempt from wrongs, 
 " contented, constantly devout, of subdued passions, and firm 
 " resolves. He, my servant, is dear to me, who is unexpecting, 
 " just, and pure, impartial, free from distraction of mind ; who is 
 " the same in friendship and hatred, in honour and dishonour; 
 " who is unsolicitous about the event of things ; to whom praise 
 " and blame are as one ; who is of little speed, pleased with 
 " whatever cometh to pass, and who is of a steady mind." 
 
 " The triumph of Right over Wrong in speech and action 
 " (for the same word means Truth and Justice) is the burden 
 " of nine-tenths of the Egyptian Texts, which have come down 
 " to us. In the famous Monument of the Egyptian Harps the 
 "Inscription was: 'Mind thee of the day, when thou shalt 
 " ' start for the land, to which one goeth to return not thence. 
 " ' Good for thee will have been a good life ; therefore be just, 
 " ' and hate iniquity, for he, who loveth what is Right, shall 
 " ' triumph.' 
 
 " We do not believe the words of an Inscription, telling the 
 " praises of the deceased, but we must believe the Idea of 
 " Morality prescribed. None of the Christian virtues are 
 " forgotten in it : piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in 
 " word and deed, chastity, the protection of the weak, 
 " benevolence towards the humble, deference to superiors, 
 " respect for property: all this is expressed in extremely good 
 " Language on Egyptian tombs." (Renouf : Hibbert-Lecture, 
 
 As long as a Religious conception does more good than 
 harm, and a standard of Morality is retained, the wise man 
 would let the people alone ; but too often a Religious con- 
 ception wastes away, and dies, in an atmosphere of hideous 
 immorality. Lucretius boldly writes as a comment on the 
 Sacrifice of his daughter by Agamemnon : 
 
 " Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." 
 
 And in India we have learnt lately another lesson : it may be 
 doubted, whether the Indian youth, educated in the State- 
 Colleges, and thoroughly purged of belief in any of the moral 
 sanctions of their forefathers, are not less well prepared for a 
 decent moral control of life than his uneducated contemporary.
 
 ( 147 ) 
 2. Arm of the Flesh. 
 
 Under this head come Propagation of Religion by force of arms, 
 Intolerance, Persecution, Spoliation, Excommunication, Civil 
 Disabilities, Murder, Torture, Burying alive : all these atrocities 
 performed in the name of Religion by the help of the party 
 in power. The Books of Kings and Chronicles tell us how 
 in that little country, occupied by the twelve tribes, the will 
 of the King for the time being went for everything : Hezekiah 
 succeeded Ahaz, he was followed by Manasseh, and the latter 
 by Josiah ; up and down went the Altars of Baal, and the 
 groves ; of course the Historians take the part of the so-called 
 good Kings, and are loud in their abuse of the so-called bad 
 ones, one of whom was only eight years old, and reigned three 
 months, but they have all one feature in common, they killed 
 all those, who differed from them : if Jezebel killed the Prophets, 
 Jehu killed the Priests ; there was an absolute want of tolerance : 
 Jehu's slaughter of the Priests of Baal, and the relatives of 
 Ahab, is the most abominable of all : the Church of Rome cries 
 out at the least sign of Persecution, but Rome was a master 
 of the art of Persecution, and appears quite ready to do so 
 again, if chance offered. 
 
 " Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes ?" 
 
 Some of the sufferers in the reign of Diocletian became in 
 their old age, under Constantine, the bitterest persecutors 
 themselves. It is an astounding fact, how Religious people 
 forget all Ideas of Mercy, Justice, and Pity, towards those, who 
 differ from themselves in some abstract dogma, or ceremonial 
 practice, or even of the date of a feast-day. Men of the 
 present Epoch have all the will to persecute, but lack the power : 
 the dead weight of Atheism, Agnosticism, Indifferentism, renders 
 any personal persecution impossible, but social, professional, 
 domestic, persecution is still rampant. 
 
 In China, 460 Literati were buried alive by one of the 
 Emperors on account of some difference of doctrine ; in Egypt, 
 a King Khuen-Atin persecuted those, who would not join him 
 in worshipping the disk of the Sun, and, when he died, his 
 followers suffered the same treatment. 
 
 " No Religious conceptions are so hard to reconcile, or to 
 " find a working compromise, as those, which outwardly present 
 " the greatest similarity to each other. The Sun was the 
 " object of Worship to many ancient Nations, and resolved into 
 " a triad :
 
 ( 148 ) 
 
 " Atin Ra, the Solar Disk. 
 " Muer Ra, the Solar Ray. 
 " Ra, the Abstract Deity. 
 
 "They seemed to be identical, but the great so-called 
 " Heresy of Amenophis IV, or Khuen-Atin, turned upon this 
 " difference. His real name was Amen Ra, he took the name 
 " of Khu-en-atin, Glory to the Solar Disk." (Cooper's 
 Heresies of the Past, p. 41.) 
 
 Many of the differences of modern Sects are equally foolish. 
 ' If Christians and Mahometans were in their superstitious 
 ' fancies equally far from the Truth, they were equally wanting 
 ' in justice and mercy. The Jesuit-ridden Court of Vienna in 
 ' vain urged the sacred duty of persecuting the Protestants in 
 ' Hungary on the Turkish Pasha at Buda, who treated Christians 
 ' of all sects and sorts with the same contemptuous toleration. 
 ' The Jews, expelled from Christian Spain, found a refuge and 
 ' a shelter in the dominions of the Grand Turk ; while the 
 ' Corsair brigantines of Algiers and Sallec were propelled by 
 ' sinews of Christian Slaves, the rowing-benches of the galleys 
 ' of the Most Christian King, and of the Knights of St. John, 
 ' were manned by fettered Turks and Moors." 
 
 But the lower grades of society are quite as susceptible of 
 the same bitter intolerance : they cannot be contented to leave 
 other people alone, if they are left alone themselves: in 1893 
 the Hindu mob attacked the Mahometans, because they availed 
 themselves of their undoubted right to kill cattle for consumption : 
 lives have been lost in the struggle : there is no doubt that 
 the new organization of "Cow-Protection Society" is but a 
 seditious movement under a thin veil of Religion. An attempt 
 has been made to capture Commissariat-cattle, collected for the 
 food of the British troops : the troops were called out, and 
 there was loss of life among the rioters. It is clear, that the 
 non-Christian fanatics have their Religious fads quite as much 
 as the Christian faddists in England, who worry about the 
 Opium -Trade. Of course desecration of Mosques, and 
 destruction of Temples, always form part of such lamentable 
 contests. 
 
 Civil disabilities still exist ; Murder, Torture, Burying alive, 
 for the present, are out of fashion. Both the Hindu, and the 
 Buddhist, are tolerant as regards dogma, and have ever been 
 so. Nebuchadnezzar's golden image is a specimen of the 
 Religious teaching not only of that age, but of mankind till the 
 Reformation, and even afterwards till the Revolution ; whatever 
 the Rulers approved, that must be enforced. We read of people 
 burnt because they would not believe in the Image, and then 
 cut to pieces because they would not believe in the God of
 
 ( 149 ) 
 
 Israel: it is the same now: Orthodoxy means "My-doxy"; 
 each person thinks his own form of Religion the very best 
 form, and the only one, which ought to be allowed to exist ; 
 in fact, the common herd, gentle and simple, lays aside all 
 Reason, Justice, and Common-Sense in matters of Religion. 
 Christian things should be done in a Christian manner. 
 
 As I walked years ago through the streets of the great city 
 of Banaras in North India, of which I was Magistrate, I have 
 stopped before Temples to exchange civil words with the 
 Hindu Priests, and watch their ritual. I listened to their 
 prayers in an archaic dead Language, which I could under- 
 stand, having learnt the Language in an English College, but 
 of which the prostrate worshippers understood not a word. I 
 recognised the same features, which I had witnessed in the 
 Temples of the Greek and Roman Christianity. Whether the 
 form was wrong or right, it was at least a service of duty to 
 the Ruler of the Universe. It was the Religious conception 
 of 200 Millions, and of a date earlier than Moses, tolerant, 
 making no attempt to proselytize, peaceful, self-satisfied, and 
 conveying a sanction to personal Morality under certain 
 recognised laws and customs. 
 
 Then and now arose in my mind the awful question : what 
 right had a petty Chieftain, like the King of Samaria, to 
 slaughter the Priests of Baal, because he differed from 
 them ? Would not banishment from his kingdom, as it is 
 presumed that they were aliens from Tyre, have been 
 sufficient ? Is it wise to read the narratives of such outrages 
 on the Eternal Law of doing unto others as you would wish 
 men to do unto you, in Christian Churches ? Is this real 
 Worship to a God, so full of Love and Pity, " Who hateth 
 nothing that He has made." In times of trouble and oppres- 
 sion the Jew and the Christian claim Tolerance for themselves. 
 The Missionaries in China are always raising an outcry on 
 this subject, appealing to Treaties, and soliciting the aid of 
 gunboats : 
 
 " Non tali auxilio." 
 
 They would be very angry if the Emperor of China acted 
 towards them, as Ahab acted to the Priests of Baal. From 
 the Jews came the deadly heritage of Intolerance, which lasted 
 down to the seventeenth century a.d., of inflicting death merely 
 on account of a conscientious difference in the appreciation 
 of Divine Things. It took a long time for poor weak men to 
 find out, that Religious convictions are involuntary, and that it 
 is contrary to the first principles of true Religion to coerce 
 them. In the time of the Prophet Jeremiah our phlegmatic
 
 ( 150 ) 
 
 indifference to the Religious convictions of our next-door 
 neighbours would have been deemed to be dishonourable to 
 God. Torquemada, of Spain, who burnt 8000 Protestants, was 
 but the lineal descendant of the assassins of Stephen, who were 
 of the same seed, as those Priests who declared that by their law 
 Christ ought to die. 
 
 It is clear that the spread of Christianity in the Roman 
 Empire was brought about, not by Miracles, and Preaching, 
 but by overbearing Sovereigns and intolerant Priests. It grew 
 indeed by its own internal power and suitability to the age, 
 and recommended itself by its precepts, examples, and pro- 
 mises : the old system had broken up ; there was a vacuum 
 in the Religious atmosphere, and Christianity filled it. Could 
 this result not have been obtained without the frightful cruelty? 
 The Romish persecutors at the time of the Reformation were 
 but the legitimate successors of the original Converters. In 
 due course, bitter complaints were made by the Christians 
 against the Mahometans for their intolerance : in what did 
 they differ from the Christians who converted Europe ? Alcuin 
 boldly told Charlemagne to see that " everything was done in 
 " the right order, and that conviction of the Truth and Faith 
 " went before Baptism, since the washing of the body without 
 " any knowledge of the Faith in a Soul gifted with reason 
 " would be of no use " (J. Johnston, Century of Christian 
 Progress, p. 1 12). 
 
 Such were the views of the Roman Emperors in the first 
 century of Christianity, and of the Hindu Nation always. 
 Even an Atheist was not liable to punishment, as it was not 
 in a man's power to believe or disbelieve at his pleasure ; it 
 was even lawful to propagate his views, but not by violence, 
 or insult to the Religion of others. Toleration was the great 
 primeval and Universal principle : it was lawful to every man 
 to be of what Religion he liked. The most notable sentiment 
 in the Annals of Tacitus for the guidance of Statesmen was 
 the golden dictum of Tiberius: 
 
 o v 
 
 " Deorum injuriae Diis curas." 
 
 What rivers of blood would not its frank acceptance have 
 prevented ? Who made poor erring man judge of the fact, 
 whether an insult was offered to God in matters of Religion ? 
 The Missionary spares no words of abuse of a non-Christian 
 for uttering blasphemous words with regard to his holy 
 Religion : it is, indeed, painful to hear or read such ex- 
 pressions ; but the Missionary does not spare the Religious 
 conceptions of other Nations, and in their eyes is equally 
 guilty of blasphemy, and in our eyes of ignorant intolerance.
 
 ( 151 ) 
 
 More in his "Eutopia" gives a clear idea of the sentiments 
 of the enlightened men of his time, such as Erasmus, Colet, 
 and their mutual friend : 
 
 "That God's design was the happiness of man; that the 
 " ascetic rejector of legitimate Human delights, save for the 
 " common good, or other high cause, was thanklessness." 
 
 It must not be forgotten, that the Religious persecutor and 
 the Religious martyr, i.e., one who has courted martyrdom, are 
 the same kind of person in a different environment. He, who 
 is ready ostentatiously to die for his Faith, has a certainty that 
 it is conformable to Divine law, and to his own advantage to 
 make others die, if they oppose that Faith. Torquemada 
 could not see that there was a via media of leaving people 
 alone : he would have courted martyrdom himself, and declined 
 to be let alone. 
 
 Hear the words of the Bishop of London in his sermon at 
 the Exeter Church Congress, 1894 : 
 
 " If a man believed, he could not be indifferent to all that 
 " was said against the Truth of God. But that was not Christ's 
 " way of dealing with those, who had sinned against Him, who 
 " were not moved in the slightest degree either by His 
 " marvellous works or His still more marvellous teaching. In 
 " no such way did the Lord ever allow that His Gospel should 
 " be maintained ; in no such way did He ever encourage His 
 " true disciples to fight in defence of the Faith or of the 
 " Church. It had been tried again and again. There had 
 " been times, when Christians had endeavoured to maintain the 
 " Truth by persecuting unto the death those, who dared to assail 
 " Him, when Christians had defended the Church by the use of 
 " such means as the Lord never used Himself, and never 
 " authorized others to use. Was there any man who had read 
 " Church History, who in his calmer moments was not ashamed 
 " of what had been done in the name of Christ ? Was there 
 " any man who would not, if he could, blot out of the events 
 " of the past all the History of those saddest of all sad days, 
 " when Human life and comfort and happiness were counted as 
 " nothing if there were any chance of maintaining the Divine 
 " Institutions and Divine Doctrine ? They could not think of 
 " such things without grief of heart. No one now proposed a 
 " return to anything like that. None proposed such intolerance 
 " or any kind of persecution. Still they were tempted to 
 " assume the position, which belonged to the Lord alone, and 
 " to condemn, although they acknowledged, that they had no 
 " right to push condemnation into punishment." 
 
 To give an idea of the feelings of a Hungarian Magnate of 
 the Nineteenth Century on the subject of Toleration, I quote 
 the words of Count Zichi in the Chamber of Magnates, 1894.
 
 ( 152 ) 
 
 He stated, that it was precisely his respect to, and sympathy 
 for, his Jewish fellow-citizens, that made him oppose the 
 measure (to grant them freedom from intolerant laws), "because 
 " to grant permission to Christians to go over to the Jewish 
 " Religion was contrary to the very Idea of Christianity, while 
 " conversion from Judaism to Christianity was already per- 
 " mitted." This is indeed an instance of the deep degradation 
 of the intellect and conscience of honest and educated men. 
 
 3. Fanaticism. 
 
 We have sad instances in all ages, and all climes, of 
 Impostors, Fanatics, Enthusiasts, devotees, deliberate fabrica- 
 tors, perjurers. The self-imposed tortures of the Hindu Fakir 
 is a matter of notoriety ; so is the locking up in a convent 
 of a poor young girl, whose presence is in the way of her 
 own people ; the dancing of the Durwish in Constantinople ; 
 the swinging of the Fakir at the Charak-Puja in Bangal ; the 
 Eremites of Egypt ; the pillar of Simon Stylites at Antioch ; 
 the lying miracles at Papist Shrines ; the alleged Faith-healing 
 of infatuated religionists; the believers in a Millennium. All 
 discussion on scientific, or historical, principles is avoided, 
 or forbidden, because it is beyond the intellectual standard 
 of the majority. " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " is the 
 cry, which floats down the great River of Time in all countries 
 and all Languages. The Protestant Missionary calls the non- 
 Christian a fanatic, who will not listen to his arguments, or the 
 Jew, or the Roman Catholic, but are they more fanatical than 
 the Missionary himself ? The Latin word ' fanaticus ' is derived 
 from ' fanum,' " a temple," and its primary meaning is one 
 that is "inspired," and "enthusiastic"; as far back as the time 
 of Cicero, it acquired the secondary meanings of " furious, mad, 
 frantic." 
 
 4. Superstition. 
 
 In which form of Religious conception are grosser instances 
 recorded of Superstition, Sanctimoniousness, Hypocrisy, arro- 
 gant Pharisaic pride, narrow-minded exclusion of others, claim 
 to a monopoly of the Deity ? Under each one of these heads 
 how much could be written, gathered from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, the non-Christian Sacred Books, Secular Histories, 
 Modern News-letters, or taken from life ! 
 
 Religion is essentially illogical. The Psalms prove this :
 
 ( 153 ) 
 
 they are supposed to be vehicles of Love, yet how little they 
 have of Mercy in dealing with those, whom the Hebrew pietists 
 please to describe as God's enemies ; somebody else's " doxy." 
 So also the purest theoretic conception of Divinity can be found 
 flowing in the same channels with the most degraded Supersti- 
 tion, most worldly practice, most low morality. 
 
 5. Change of Belief. 
 
 There has been the same process of nominal belief, outward 
 show, ceremonial practice, going on in the elder world, as we 
 witness in the surface Christianity at the present Epoch. 
 From policy, from fashion, from the influence of marriage, 
 or education, or the result of association with other populations, 
 changes have taken place : sometimes in the form of Religious 
 development, or evolution ; sometimes in contraction of Ideas ; 
 sometimes in sheer abandonment of the old conception, and 
 adoption of the new. In general there has been no heart- 
 conversion, no acceptance of a new cut-and-dried dogma ; 
 no feeling, "Behold! I am a new man." "Me eat beef, me 
 drink brandy, me Christian": this is the cry of the Indian 
 outcast. Circumcision fenced in the proselyte to Judaism and 
 Islam by an indelible flesh-mark. In this they resemble 
 cattle, which are marked with the brand of their owner. The 
 Pagan tribes of India are gradually being absorbed into the 
 Hindu and Mahometan system, unless Christianity anticipates 
 the change; there is a slight modification of dress, and 
 teaching of conventional words, and movement of the limbs, 
 a shunning of certain foods, a keeping of certain days, a 
 payment of certain fees, and the thing is done : whether 
 labelled as a Hindu, Mahometan, Christain, Buddhist, Jew, he 
 is the same ignorant Pagan, in reality, as he was before. 
 
 It seems that a powerful Religion, supported by the 
 Ruling Power, illustrated by works of Genius, must have an 
 influence over the Religious conceptions of other people, 
 brought into contact ; it cannot be doubted, that the con- 
 ception of Angels, and perhaps of the Evil Spirit, were 
 borrowed by the Jews during the Captivity from the tenets 
 of Zoroaster, as exhibited by the old Persians. " It must be 
 " admitted, that an unfamiliar Idea, when first propagated, 
 " always and necessarily produces a popular reaction in the 
 " social organism, which is always conscientious, and rightly 
 " so" {Review of Reviews, Christmas, 1894). 
 
 The argument is : Our present Religion exists ; it has worked 
 well for a long time : let it be ; we have tried it ; a change may
 
 ( 154 ) 
 
 be for the worse ; the reflex action of the self-preserving 
 element in Society arms itself to resist a new Idea. We have 
 only to imagine the feelings of a Welsh Clergyman, when his 
 daughter announces herself as intending to be a Mormon, or an 
 Orangeman of Ulster when his son becomes a Papist Priest. 
 The Missionaries describe the wickedness of a Hindu, who 
 locks up his son, so as to prevent his being baptized. What 
 would the Missionary do, if his own wife or child were to 
 become Theosophists ? 
 
 Sometimes without actual change of terminology Sects 
 spring into existence, like the Dialects of a Language, such 
 as the Sikhs, Kabirpanthi, Jains, etc., among the Hindus ; the 
 Shiah and Suni, Sufi and Babi, among the Mahometans ; 
 and the numerous Denominations of Christianity. Sometimes 
 the new Religious conception never gets clear of the old 
 Paganism, as is evidenced by the Church of Rome to this day : 
 the fear is, that the same perils await Christianity in India and 
 China ; they may refuse to receive the doctrines of Christ in a 
 Teutonic, or Grseco-Roman, capsule, and form one for themselves 
 of national and kindred elements. 
 
 The regular thing has always been for the professors of one 
 Religion, or one Sect, heartily to abuse, and, if possible, to 
 persecute, the holder of another: the favourite words are 
 Orthodox and Heretic : but which is which ? A man, who on 
 conviction changes his Religion, gets no thanks for it, is 
 frightfully abused, put to every kind of social torture, and 
 is "lucky if he escapes bodily torture and imprisonment. In 
 the Middle Ages there was the Auto da fe : early in date the 
 Pope issued a Bull ordering all, who had accepted Christianity, 
 and went back, to be punished. In every form of Religion 
 there are found to exist Sects, and they were generally 
 persecuted. 
 
 I have myself heard an American Missionary in Northern 
 India, in the crowded streets of a town, tell his audience that the 
 Hindu worshipped cow-dung : the people only laughed, as we 
 should laugh, if they were to say that we worshipped a crumb 
 of bread. Another Missionary called upon the Hindu to change 
 his ancient Religion for no other reason than that all the learned 
 men in Europe and America believed in Christianity, as if that 
 style of argument would influence any kind of believer. 
 
 Under the tombstones of so-called Heretics lie a variety 
 of different persons, the partizans of a fallen Spiritual dynasty : 
 they have had no mercy shown to them : Vse Victis : they 
 presumed to do, what we all do now, think for themselves on 
 some of the mysterious subjects presented to the Human 
 intellect : they failed in getting a hearing, or in convincing, and 
 were trodden down by some wilful Sovereign or Chieftain, or
 
 ( 155 ) 
 
 some imperious ecclesiastic : their books were all burnt, and 
 therefore it is presumed, that they must have been in the wrong : 
 the wheels of the Catholic Church went over their bones : they 
 were anathematized in the schools by men, who had not nobility 
 of character sufficient to credit their adversaries with benevolent 
 intentions, and treat their so-called errors with Christian charity. 
 Thus the Church, as left by the Apostles, has gradually 
 deteriorated into a pretentious Priesthood with Ritual and 
 Ceremonies : there were honest men in past centuries, as there 
 are still, who will continue to protest, as their forefathers did, 
 and separate themselves from the corrupted Truth.
 
 ( 156 ) 
 
 CAP. VII. PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 Multiplication and Improved Culture under all forms 
 
 of Religious Belief. 
 Art, Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, Drama. 
 
 i. Multiplication and Improved Culture under all 
 forms of Religious Belief. 
 
 The Human Race has prospered, multiplied, and grown fat, 
 under all conditions of Religious conception. The populations 
 of India and China are increasing at an enormous rate, and 
 together make up half the total of the Globe : the great non- 
 Christian River flows on, flows on, quite unconscious of the 
 tiny streamlet of Christian Doctrine, that leaves no trace in 
 the colour of the waters. We read in the Books of Chronicles, 
 that if a King or his Subjects worshipped Baal, they were at once 
 visited by the anger of an outraged National Deity ; and if a King 
 destroyed idols, and removed high places, he received material 
 blessing; with the Captivity at Babylon, and the conception 
 of an Idea of Rewards and Punishments in a Future State, 
 this style of describing the course of Human events fell out 
 of practice: something of the kind reappears in the Annual 
 Reports of Evangelical Missionary Societies: any temporary 
 success of a Mission is described as " receiving God's manifest 
 blessings." When, a few years afterwards the Missionary dies, 
 or is killed, and the Mission uprooted, the Chronicler is silent : 
 yet the balance of success and failure is held by the same wise, 
 kind, and unerring, Hand : there are blessings in disguise : I 
 have known the death of a Missionary to be a gain to the 
 Mission, the greatest possible gain. 
 
 One thing is quite clear, that the current of Religious belief 
 has no relation whatever to the material prosperity of a country, 
 and it is well that this should be the case. Nor does it depend 
 entirely on the intellectual position of the Race : none is so 
 degraded as not to be capable of Religious influences, but the
 
 ( 157 ) 
 
 lower that they are, the lower is that influence : this makes 
 the position of the degraded Races of mankind so peculiarly 
 the objects of our sympathy and pity. Their existence is 
 a wonderful phenomenon : the chariot of the great moral and 
 political conquerors of the world in past centuries has passed 
 them by; they have had only faint opportunities of developing 
 the good, that most certainly is in them ; they have but a dim 
 Idea of an unknown Great Power, at whose mercy they live. 
 
 Their service is not of Love, but of Fear: the Past has 
 brought them no lessons, the Present no enjoyment, and no 
 certain Hope lies in their Future : here we see the necessity 
 of a civilizing influence brought about by contact with neigh- 
 bours, and the power of transmission of the experience of 
 one age to the next by the means of literature. 
 
 And yet in the whole Race of man, whether Christian, or 
 non-Christian, or pre-Christian, from the time of Pharaoh, who 
 ordered all the male children to be killed, down to the present 
 year, we find the same absence of Peace and Mercy, the same 
 desire to shed blood, the same lust and greed evidenced in the 
 annexation of countries, and destruction of weaker Races. 
 The Kings of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, could not have 
 evidenced more contempt for the lives of other Nations than 
 do the Chartered Companies of Africa, South of the Equator : 
 we read calmly in the daily papers of so many poor Africans 
 killed by the intruding white men, of the so-called impudence 
 of an African Chief venturing to think of expelling intrusive 
 enemies from his dominions ; add to these the awful crimes 
 committed by the Slave-Dealer, the Scientific Explorer, and the 
 Liquor-Dealer : the first is beyond European control, and is 
 only the result of European example in the last century ; the 
 second and third are the peculiar outcomes of so-called Christian 
 civilization. The story of Africa rightly told, the thousands 
 killed by the Europeans, the evil habits taught by Europeans, 
 the new and filthy diseases introduced into uncivilized Races 
 by Europeans, indicate what a powerless factor any Religion, 
 the purest, the best, is in the control of Human affairs. How 
 often we read in the papers of the violation and murder of 
 women in England ! In India up to a late date widows were 
 burnt, and female children killed, as a matter of Religion. We 
 have stopped the latter, but the former still flourishes. 
 
 Deliberate ill-treatment of women and children seems to 
 have been the feature of all Religions in ancient days : Samuel 
 ordered all the Amalekite women and children to be killed ; 
 in the Psalms in our Churches we hear English women and 
 children chanting out, " Happy is he, who dashes thy little ones 
 against the stones." The whole conduct of the Hebrew Race 
 towards women, beginning with David and Solomon, was simply
 
 ( 158 ) 
 
 disgusting. How different was the conduct of the contemporary 
 Greek : there was no polygamy there : the scene of Andromache 
 parting from Hector places the relation of the sexes beyond 
 dispute. Among the savage Races woman is but a chattel, 
 purchased for so many cows, to be killed at pleasure. 
 
 In a paper read at the last Meeting of the British Association, 
 1 893, we find, that the women of the tribes in the Kongo basin 
 are not credited with having any future state. In England women 
 are disqualified from services, public and private, for which they 
 are fully qualified, simply because they are women, while every 
 foolish, half-witted, man is admitted as a matter of course. And 
 no one class presses the heel down on women more than the 
 Religious Classes. Some, if not all, of the greatest of Religious 
 and Missionary Associations have scornfully rejected the rights 
 of women to take their full share in the work of Committees, 
 Municipal Bodies have long ago admitted women to their share 
 of the control of Poor Law Boards, School Boards, Hospitals, 
 and Charities. Any male old woman is fit to be on a Missionary 
 Committee, but women are under tabu. 
 
 There seems to have been a marked change after the Captivity 
 in the treatment of women. The compiler of the Books of 
 Chronicles omits all allusion to the gross immoralities of 
 David and Solomon ; he belonged to an Epoch, when such 
 things were impossible. At the time of Anno Domini women 
 were treated with respect, and in the time of Paul with a feeling 
 of love and honour. This was the effect, not of Judaism, but 
 of Hellenism, which eventually was to expand into Christianity. 
 Women were excluded from the Covenant in Judaism, but 
 admitted by Baptism : women were subject to Polygamy in 
 Judaism before the Captivity : Monogamy has ever been the 
 law of Christianity : women were put to death for the offences of 
 their male relations in Judaism ; in Christianity there is no such 
 vicarious punishment. 
 
 I should have lived with my eyes shut for a quarter of a 
 century in the midst of an Asiatic people, scattered in hundreds 
 of towns, and thousands of sequestered villages ; I should have 
 read in vain the writings of sacred and profane Authors of the 
 elder centuries, if I had not come to a conviction, that the Human 
 Race is not without a large portion of goodness, loving-kindness, 
 docility, purity, humility, and striving after forgiveness of errors, 
 without reference to their Religious conception. On the other 
 hand, with reference to such conceptions, History, ancient and 
 modern, teems with instances of staunchness, and dauntlessness, 
 of confession before men, and martyrdom of old and young 
 of both sexes. Paley must have been ignorant of History and 
 the world generally, when he instanced martyrdom as a proof 
 of the Truth of one Religious Belief: it appears that votaries
 
 ( 159 ) 
 
 are most ready to suffer and die for beliefs, which appear to 
 us to be obviously the most false. A modern writer has told 
 us of the universal hunger and thirst for Truth, Righteousness, 
 and Love, exhibited by men, at intervals of centuries, showing 
 the continuousness of the innate influence, and occurring at 
 distances of space never traversed by mortal foot. We cannot 
 but humbly believe that hearts, such as that of Socrates, Buddha, 
 Zoroaster, and Kong-Fu-Tsee, were touched by the Holy Spirit, 
 however much the Christian Pharisee may arrogate to himself 
 the monopoly of Virtue. God has not left Himself without 
 a witness : not without His permission, and design, has the 
 spread of Christian Truth been delayed for so many centuries, 
 and restricted by so many impediments. Paul testifies to this 
 both at Lystra (Acts, xiv, 16, 17) and at Athens (Acts, xvii, 27). 
 
 I quote the words of Bishop Selwyn the elder: "I have 
 " myself seen the lowest type of humanity, the Australian blacks ; 
 " I have seen the men of Erromanga, who have twice killed 
 " Missionaries on their own shore, but I am sure, that these 
 " men have the same capacity for the reception of Divine Truth, 
 " that any of us is gifted with by God. I have been present, 
 " when one of these despised Races was sentenced to death, 
 " and I attended him at his execution : he left on my mind the 
 " impression, that he died with just as much of simple Faith, as 
 " was accepted by Jesus Christ from the penitent thief on the 
 " Cross." 
 
 The appearance of great Philosophers, and Founders of new 
 Religions, simultaneously in different parts of the Globe about 
 the sixth and fifth centuries b.c. indicated that the Human 
 Race was passing from the Animistic conception of early 
 days, and the childhood of mankind, into full manhood. It 
 grew in knowledge of itself, its environment, and other men, 
 and felt after an unknown Ruler, a Dispenser of Good and 
 Evil, one who creates, preserves, and has the power to destroy, 
 yet is merciful, slow to anger, and full of fatherly kindness. 
 It had been compelled to look inward and outward, and to 
 moralize, speculate, and formulate, and all thoughtful men even 
 to this day are troubled with the same thought, why so many 
 hundred, apparently innocent, at any rate unprepared, thought- 
 less, creatures are hurried into Eternity without a moment of 
 preparation, by a wicked War, a Storm, a Railway-Accident, a 
 Pit-Accident, or something going wrong in a Manufactory. 
 
 Plato points out that " Knowledge is only recollection, the 
 " soul being immortal: what men called 'Dying' was passing 
 " from one state of existence to a new state, which men called 
 " ' Birth'; it remembers all its stages, and recalls them. In the 
 " Royal procession of Gods and Souls of Mortals in the highest 
 " Heavens, ' the Soul, which follows God closest, and is made
 
 ( 160 ) 
 
 " « more like unto Him, lifts the head of its charioteer into the 
 " ' supercelestial realm, and so he is carried round, and having 
 " ' gained a clear vision of Truth, remains in the society of 
 "'the Gods' and apprehends absolute Truth." (Westcott : 
 Religious Thoughts of the West, pp. 28, 29, 30.) 
 
 Leigh Hunt's beautiful lines are to the point : Abu ben 
 Adhem, a holy man, saw an Angel writing the names of those, 
 who love the Lord, and to the inquiry, whether his name was 
 there, received a negative reply : 
 
 " Abu spoke more low 
 " And cheerily still, and said : " I pray thee then 
 " Write me as one that loves his fellow-men : " 
 " The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
 " It came again with a great wakening light, 
 " And showed the names, which love of God had blessed, 
 " And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." 
 
 Can we not all agree in these additional lines, which I suggest ? 
 
 " For we best love our God and Father, when 
 " We most entirely love our fellow-men." 
 
 Altruism was the great principle introduced into the world, 
 600 B.C., by Gautama Buddha: before it had been Egoism; 
 " save yourself, and let the world take its chance." The secret of 
 the power of the Buddhist was in the fact, that he was perfectly 
 unselfish, that the greatest joy was to do good to others, that 
 the thought of self was evil : at the time of the great Anno 
 Domini this principle was enforced by a higher sanction, and a 
 Divine aid promised to those who practised it. 
 
 2. Art, Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, Drama. 
 
 All Religions, and more especially the Christian, have 
 suffered much from their contact with Art, Art Pagan in its 
 conception, half- Pagan to this day : what else but Pagan is the 
 halo of glory round the heads of holy figures ? it is but the 
 brass plate fastened on the heads of Pagan Statues to prevent 
 the features being defiled by the deposits of birds. The early 
 Christians opposed the Paganizing of their Faith by contact 
 with Art : witness Eusebius' letter to the Empress Constantia 
 (Westcott, " Religious Thought in the West," p. 294) : " We 
 may not seem, like Idolaters, to carry our God about in an
 
 ( 161 ) 
 
 Image." How many of the errors of the Romish Church are 
 but the outcomes of the gross realism of Sculpture and 
 Painting! If Christ in His agony at Gennesareth cried out, 
 "let this cup pass from Me," was it right in a Statuary to 
 represent an Angel forcing the Sacramental cup on Him ? If 
 the Evangelist records, that Satan entered after the sop into 
 Judas, was it right in a Painting to delineate a rat leaping 
 into Judas' mouth ? 
 
 Ruskin ("Stones of Venice") remarks, that he never yet met 
 a Christian, whose heart was thoroughly set upon the world to 
 come, and, so far as Human judgment could pronounce, perfect 
 and right before God, who cared about Art at all : at the best 
 it is Human, false, and meretricious. The Greek Church 
 allows no Statues, but sins more deeply as regards Pictures. 
 
 The Mahometan will not allow the figure of man to be 
 pourtrayed. The Paintings and Statuary of the Hindu and 
 Buddhist seem to the European eye so gross, as to be incapable 
 of doing harm, but to the Asiatic eye they are as baneful as the 
 finest work of European Sculptor or Painter. In the Greek 
 and Roman Churches the effect is monstrous and lamentable. 
 Pictures are exhibited to illustrate false Doctrines, the stories 
 of false Miracles, such as the Miracle of Bolsena, in which 
 blood flowed from the wafer to prove the Doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation, or to record false facts, and false dreams. 
 Pictures are exhibited, in which ancient and Oriental people 
 are represented in European dress, and surrounded with 
 European furniture, such as the birth of Christ in a four-post 
 bed ; the Last Supper is drawn as a feast of modern times, 
 and the wine is exhibited in a Sacramental cup. Other 
 Pictures, called Religious, are merely exhibitions of female 
 beauty, imperfectly draped, in indelicate positions. Such stories 
 as Potiphar's wife, Susanna and the Elders, David and 
 Bathsheba, should have been shunned by Painters with any 
 spark of Religion. The same thought to a less degree applies 
 to Statues of Religious subjects : they deceive the vulgar : that 
 is their object. 
 
 In an educated community pictures can do little harm, but 
 among an ignorant peasantry, such as the Italian, they are 
 productive of infinite mischief: in the Basilica of St. Agnes, 
 at Rome, a picture is exhibited of Pope Pius IX being saved 
 from a fall by the Apostle Peter putting his arms round him, 
 at the same time, that Agnes is praying to the Virgin to 
 intercede for his safety: the ignorant populace believe, that 
 this took place. In the Vatican is a large picture of the 
 dogma of the Immaculate Conception-Bull being proclaimed 
 in St. Peter's by the Pope : the scene down below is what 
 actually took place : up above is the Trinity, the Apostles, and 
 
 ii
 
 ( 162 ) 
 
 the Prophets, looking on with satisfaction, and the Virgin 
 coming forward and bowing her thanks to the audience below : 
 what can be thought of such a conception ! Awful pictures 
 are seen everywhere of the pains in Hell, and poor people 
 in Purgatory, to induce people to pay money for Masses. 
 Mahomet saw how the influence of Pictures and Statues had led 
 the Greek and Roman Churches into Polytheism in a veiled 
 form, while the uncultured Semites clung to Monotheism, and 
 he had the courage to resist it, and forbade the material 
 representation of the Human body. Before the invention of 
 Printing, and the spread of literature, it may have been 
 expedient to represent Scripture scenes in statuesque full-size 
 forms ; but it is so no longer necessary or expedient. 
 
 Now that Toleration exists it may be found, that the Art 
 of the Sculptor and Painter may be used for the purpose of 
 deriding Scripture-stories : I saw in Holland a picture of the 
 birth of Christ in a manger, in which it had been so arranged, 
 that the horns of an ox should fit exactly over the head 
 of Joseph, his reputed father, and the guide pointed out 
 with glee this arrangement to show that Joseph wore horns. 
 The ill-judging Missionary in India circulates offensive descrip- 
 tions of Mahomet and Krishna : a free Press will soon learn 
 to retaliate, and use the same weapons. The erection of 
 magnificent, and highly decorated, places of Worship, with 
 valuable ornaments of metal, is to be deplored : it is a 
 remnant of Judaism and Paganism, and of the Religious 
 conceptions of the elder world, when Religion was National, 
 not individual, external ritual, not inward Spirituality. Theatrical 
 performances of Scripture stories are to be deplored. In the 
 streets of Banaras the great Hindu story of the Avatara of Rama 
 is annually enacted amidst rejoicing thousands, and sometimes 
 the great Mahometan festival of Husan and Hosein falls on the 
 same day, and Christian Rulers have to keep the peace : all 
 such things belong to a Past, and should under no circumstances 
 be made use of in the great Religious conception, which now 
 dominates the world, as it is unworthy of the civilization 
 of the Nineteenth Century.
 
 ( 163 ) 
 
 ' CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 I have come to my final remarks : it is of no use, like the 
 ostrich, thrusting our eyes in the sand, and seeing nothing. 
 The population of the whole world is now for the first time 
 in the annals of mankind brought into personal contact. The 
 word Christian has now become merely a Census-term : it is 
 not uncharitable to say, that thousands and thousands, who 
 bear the name, have no personal knowledge of Him, whose 
 name they bear. The effect of State-Education in British 
 India, and of Commerce, and social intercourse and general 
 Progress and Enlightenment in the whole world, is having the 
 same effect on the non-Christian population. There is gradually 
 forming a great arena, in which men nominally of all Creeds 
 meet together, have no objection to make to each other : there 
 may be a little backwardness in Matrimony and Commensality, 
 but there it ends. There is the possibility before us of the 
 great majority of the Human Race being absolutely without 
 any Religious tie. An accomplished student of the Subject 
 (Tiele, p. 244) remarks, that " the decay of the Roman State- 
 " Worship, and the hunger of the Roman people for foreign 
 " gods, Artemis of Ephesus, the Great Mother of the gods, 
 " Mi'thra, Serapis, were the expression at that time of a real 
 " and deep-seated need in the Human mind, which could not 
 " find satisfaction in a moribund State-Religion. Men longed 
 " for a god, whom they could worship with heart and soul, 
 " and with this god they longed to be reconciled." This 
 is not a characteristic of this Epoch. While the sections, 
 the denominations, the parties, in the Christian Church are 
 fighting with each other, the great mass of the community is 
 slipping out of all Religious Worship whatever, and there 
 is much reason to believe, that this means all Religious Belief 
 also. In the face of so much blank unbelief in the Christian 
 Revelation, and so much nominal belief, accompanied by entire 
 absence of practical obedience, yet co-existent in both instances 
 with morally consistent lives, free from outward stains of carnal 
 failing, it is clear, that we are entering into a new phase of the 
 Religious Idea. There may be an inward light shining brightly 
 in the heart of true believers, and a feeling of the Infinite Love
 
 ( 164 ) 
 
 of the Creator to His poor creatures in sending them His Son ; 
 there may be an experimental testimony to the truth of these 
 convictions in the lives of the believers, a fortitude under 
 adversity, and a self-restraint in prosperity, an unfeigned kind- 
 ness to man and animals, a power of gentle speech under all 
 circumstances ; hours of silent meditation may have deepened 
 the Religious conviction of Repentance, Faith, justification, 
 and Holiness, quite independent of the dogma of Creeds, the 
 shibboleth of Churches, the rubric of Worship, for verily and 
 indeed God searches the heart, and knows His own children. 
 But to the non-Christian emerging from Heathenism, there may 
 be inducements, which may lead him to broad unbelief, or 
 formal Worship, without an atom of saving Truth in his con- 
 ception of Religion. Still he will be outwardly moral, and free 
 from the cruelty and intolerance of his ancestors. 
 
 Not without reason the party, which calls itself " Con- 
 servative," is called the " stupid party " by its opponents, 
 for its ways are stupid, both in things spiritual as well as 
 material : "damnat quod non intelligit" : it cannot see, that the 
 thoughts of men grow wider, as the world advances, that 
 the eyes grow keener in proportion to the increasing strength 
 of the intellectual microscope. I quote the words of Dr. 
 Butler, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, at a late Annual 
 meeting of the Christian Evidence Society : 
 
 "The marked reluctance among their ablest students to 
 " take iholy orders was caused, not by fear of hard work, or 
 " poverty, or loss of worldly pleasures, but mainly by the fear 
 " of losing their freedom, by the thought that they would 
 " cease to be inquirers, and be turned into advocates of one side 
 " in a controversy. Some of the chief causes, which set young 
 " people against revealed Religion and the clerical position, 
 " were to be found in certain old quarrels. He could never 
 " forget the dismay and indignation among serious young 
 " men when, in the name of orthodoxy, Maurice was expelled 
 " from his professorship, Jowett's salary at Oxford was long 
 " withheld, Dr. Temple's appointment to the see of Exeter 
 " was protested against by leading Bishops to the very hour of 
 " his consecration, and Darwin's great and epoch-making Work, 
 " the ' Origin of Species,' was denounced, as a presumptuous 
 " attack on Christian truth. Unbelievers were made by well- 
 " meant errors of this kind. Just now we had before us the great 
 " question of the authority of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, 
 " few in England were competent to deal with it, as we had so 
 " few Hebrew scholars. But this conflict as to the age and 
 " authorship of the various books and as to the Human objects 
 " of their authors might be left to learned experts without any 
 " anxiety for the Christian faith. We should not take sides, as
 
 ( 165 ) 
 
 if some Religious interest were imperilled. The only Religious 
 interest was the victory of Truth. The mistake of making the 
 Godhead of Christ a bar to the discussion of matters of history 
 and criticism should not be repeated. The argument was used, 
 that Christ quoted a psalm as David's, that Christ shared the 
 omniscience and infallibility of God, and that, therefore, David 
 wrote the psalm. This argument was most earnestly to be 
 deprecated, staking as it did the true doctrine of our Lord's 
 person on a matter of no spiritual import, which ought to be 
 left to the Human reason. For successful Christian evidence 
 work they needed an eager and unbiassed love for Truth at 
 any cost, intellectual power backed by adequate learning, 
 warm sympathy with every form of spiritual conflict, and 
 courtesy and fairness towards opponents. Hardly anything 
 repelled and disgusted the young more than books on the 
 so-called orthodox side which dealt discourteously with 
 opposition." 
 
 We live in a world of thought infinitely widened. Even since 
 the Reformation, Astronomy, Geology, Anatomy, Comparative 
 History, Geography, Statistics, have come into existence: we 
 cannot assume the Religious attitude of an ignorant Hebrew, 
 whose Ideas were restricted to his petty Province, or accept 
 the dicta of Paul, wise for his time, and who yet expected the 
 Millennium in the first century a.d., which has not arrived at 
 the close of the Nineteenth. The old Fathers, and Mediaeval 
 writers, had not the physical facts of the great Globe, the great 
 Human Race in all its colours, white, black, brown, red, and 
 yellow, the still greater Kosmos, the handiwork of the Creator, 
 before them. They wrote up to the level of the talents com- 
 mitted to them. We have the Truth, or at least a larger portion 
 of it, but alas ! it is overlaid by fond mediaeval padding, and 
 incrustated by centuries' deposit of misconceptions. Unless 
 the great mass of mankind are to be allowed to slip out of all 
 Religion, we must reconsider our intellectual position. One 
 thing is clear: the uniformity of law, as valid in the revolutions 
 of the most distant Planet, as on the Earth's surface in the 
 smallest operation of Nature, is as valid now, as in the time of 
 Abraham, and was as valid then as it is now. Miracles are 
 possible, because to God all things are possible, but there is 
 evidence in the Field of Nature, that His laws are not ordinarily 
 suspended. We cannot assume, that our Heavenly Father 
 dealt in a different way with His poor creatures before Anno 
 Domini, than He does since that great event. We have, there- 
 fore, to weigh in a Christian balance the prodigies recorded 
 in the Legends of the elder world : at any rate, they do 
 not happen now. 
 
 We may open our eyes to what is coming when we read in
 
 ( 166 ) 
 
 Dr. Martineau's " Religion of Intellect," published by him at 
 
 the age of 85, the following: 
 
 "A conclusion is forced upon me, on which I cannot dwell 
 ' without pain and dismay, that Christianity, as denned and 
 ' understood by all the churches which formulate it, has been 
 ' mainly evolved from what is transient and perishable in its 
 ' sources, from what is unhistorical in its traditions, mythological 
 ' in its preconceptions, and misapprehended in the oracles of 
 
 " its prophets. From the fable of Eden to the imagination 
 ' of the last trumpet, the whole story of divine order of the 
 ' world is dislocated and deformed. The blight of birth-sin, 
 ' with its involuntary perdition ; the scheme of expiatory 
 ' redemption, with its vicarious salvation ; the incarnation, 
 ' with its low postulates of the relation between God and man, 
 ' and its unworkable doctrine of two natures in one person ; 
 ' the official transmission of grace through material elements 
 ' in the keeping of a consecrated corporation ; the second 
 ' coming of Christ to summon the dead, and part the sheep 
 ' from the goats at the general Judgment : all are the growth 
 ' of a mythical literature, or Messianic dreams, or Pharisaic 
 ' theology, or sacramental literature, or popular apotheosis. 
 ' And so nearly do these vain imaginations preoccupy the 
 ' creeds, that not a moral or spiritual element finds entrance 
 'there except 'the forgiveness of sins.' To consecrate and 
 ' diffuse, under the name of ' Christianity,' a theory of the 
 ' world's economy thus made of illusions from obsolete stages 
 ' of civilization, immense resources, material and moral, are 
 
 " expended, with effect no less deplorable in the promise of 
 ' Religion than would be in that of science, hierarchies, and 
 ' missions for propagating the Ptolemaic astronomy, and incul- 
 ' eating the rules of necromancy and exorcising. The spreading 
 ' alienation of the intellectual classes of European society from 
 
 " Christendom, and the detention of the rest in their spiritual 
 " culture at a level not much above that of the Salvation-Army, 
 ' are social phenomena, which ought to bring home a very 
 ' solemn appeal to the conscience of stationary churches. For 
 
 " their long arrear of debt to the intelligence of mankind, they 
 
 " adroitly seek to make amends by elaborate beauty of Ritual Art. 
 
 " The apology soothes for a time, but it will not last for ever." 
 
 ("Seat of Authority in Religion," p. 650. Longman, 1890.) 
 Five years later, on the 90th anniversary of his birth, he 
 
 replied to a deputation from Manchester College, Oxford, of 
 
 which he had been a Professor: 
 
 " He could not too much insist on the necessity for keeping 
 
 " the teachers of Religion in touch with the highest thought of 
 
 " their time, and for giving them an insight into the rival 
 
 " systems which too often take hold of the public mind through
 
 ( 167 ) 
 
 " an inability on the part of the people generally to compare 
 " one method tvilh another. He had always insisted upon a course 
 " of logic as necessary before entering upon the discussion 
 " of Religious philosophy; he recognised more and more how 
 " inevitably the basis of Christian teaching would have to be 
 " sought less and less in the letter of Scripture. The Bible and New 
 " Testament would have to be regarded as literature, and the 
 " mind must be trained so as to fasten securely upon the abiding 
 " elements among its varied constituents ; while the Religious 
 " sense must be cultivated, if we would hope to rescue the 
 " imperishable from what was sure to go, and to find the way 
 " clear to the one central Divine personality of Jesus." 
 
 We talk of Buddhism being defiled by the contact of lower 
 Pagan elements ; but has not Christianity suffered from similar 
 defilements ? Can we justify some of the accretions, when we 
 consider them calmly ? It is admitted, that the great work to 
 be performed by the Christian Religion is the restraint and 
 correction of the corrupt nature of man, and yet in the arguments 
 used in theological and Religious discussions how grave appears 
 the corruption of the Human intellect, so merciless to op- 
 ponents, full of excuses for facts on their own side, which cannot 
 be denied. The study of the Comparative Religion of the world 
 in a calm, thoughtful, and judicial, spirit cannot fail to open 
 out new vistas of Religious and serious thought, and a tenderer 
 love to our fellow-creatures, eventuating in a greater desire to 
 share with them the advantages of our privileged knowledge. 
 " Formality in Religion, the cold, unintellectual, or even 
 " unintelligent, assent to the Church-Creed, the formality of 
 " Public Worship, while there is no private Worship at all, is 
 "rearing a crop of Atheism, for it throws the veil of its own 
 " respectability over unchristian, godless, lives, eaten up by 
 " ambition, greed, or love-of-ease." These are the words 
 lately uttered by a Bishop : of course a professor of Christianity 
 of the type sketched by the Bishop, when brought into contact 
 with a professor of a non-Christian Religion, is, or pretends to 
 be, greatly shocked : " so disreputable, so formal, so meaning- 
 less," would be the description given by him of Hindu Worship ; 
 yet the Hindu would say very much the same of Christian 
 Worship in the light, in which he would regard it. Both forget 
 what the distinctive feature of a real Religion is : nothing less 
 than the Soul's response to the Deity, who has taken notice 
 of the Soul ; a loving intercourse of the closest, and sweetest 
 character, or as Paul puts it: "the body is the temple of the 
 Holy Spirit." 2«/jf and Ylvev/m are united in one entity. 
 
 The application of scientific principles, and the reflection 
 of the order of events in Comparative History, cannot fail to 
 influence a mind capable of the power of Reason and Analogy,
 
 ( 168 ) 
 
 whether applied to the study of an Egyptian excavation, or the 
 examination of an ancient written document. The Religions 
 of the World before the great Anno Domini, instead of deserving 
 censure and contempt, stand out amidst the loftiest conceptions 
 of the Human Intellect, foreshadowing, symbolizing, preparing 
 the way for, the coming in the Fulness of Time of One greater 
 than all. 
 
 At the very time that we are spelling out the Inscriptions 
 of Assyria, Babylonia, the Hittite, the Egyptian, the Indian, 
 the Yenissei nations of Central Asia, the Chinese, and the 
 Mexican, and rendering them into the Languages of Europe, 
 which did not come into existence till centuries after the 
 tablets of these Inscriptions had fallen out of Human sight, 
 and recollection, and had been absolutely forgotten ; at this very 
 time we are poring over, for the purpose of fixing the true 
 text, settling the true order, and finding out the right meaning, 
 the MSS. of the Jewish Scriptures in Hebrew, Aramaic, 
 Samaritan, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Mseso-Gothic, 
 Armenian, Georgian, and Anglo-Saxon, books, parts of which 
 are contemporary with those Inscriptions, which have fallen 
 out of sight, but which by God's special favour to some of 
 His poor creatures have never fallen out of the thoughts and 
 lips, and pens, of generation after generation, but which have 
 grown with the growth of each Language, twined themselves 
 round the hearts of each Nation, have supplied a law in life, 
 and a hope in death, to countless Millions, and are now being 
 rendered into the Languages of hundreds of tribes, whose 
 existence and names were unknown to the elder world, even 
 to the writers of the New Testament, being only darkly hinted 
 at in the Book of the Revelation as " nations, and kindreds, 
 and tongues," which were to come into existence hereafter. 
 
 We must recollect, that the early thoughts, Religious con- 
 ceptions, and Ancestral Customs before King Cyrus broke with 
 the Past, were National : the individual went for nothing : 
 if a Hebrew had dared to use his private judgment, he would 
 have been run through with the javelin of an assassin, such 
 as Phineas, or sent to the rear to be killed, like the young 
 Amalekite murdered by David. As to the outside world, such 
 as India, China, Africa, or Europe, the Hebrew knew nothing. 
 In the Religion of those times it was the duty of the local deity 
 to look after the welfare of his worshippers, just as the local 
 Romish Saint is expected to look after the village, which pays 
 him, or her, by prayers, offerings, and genuflexions. The 
 Worship of Yahveh as a tribal God made the Hebrews a peculiar, 
 and peculiarly offensive, little Nation, surrounded by tribes, who 
 hated them, and governed by a combination of weak and yet 
 tyrannical kings, under the casual influence of irresponsible
 
 ( 169 ) 
 
 Prophets, which made administration impossible. It is difficult 
 to imagine how commerce could have thriven, when one small 
 tribe assumed such a ridiculous attitude towards its neighbours, 
 expecting the most perfect Toleration, and giving none. The 
 Hebrew assumed, and rightly assumed, that their law was 
 given to them by their God, but all the Races of the ancient 
 world assumed the same in their own interest, whether the 
 Assyrians (II Kings, xviii, 25), or the Egyptians (II Chronicles, 
 xxxv, 21), or the Hindus. These lines are penned with a 
 double object: (1) To conciliate some interest in the Religious 
 conceptions of the elder World, and to check the ignorant abuse 
 of all, who have not had the small grace conceded to them of 
 wearing the cloak of outward Christianity, which is fondly 
 supposed by the Evangelical middle classes to co-exist only 
 with the social customs and apparel of their own class, and their 
 own level of wisdom or unwisdom. (2) To point out how 
 reasonable the way of Salvation traced by Christ is, if we can only 
 clear it of the Pagan environment, which has hardened round 
 the living germs : the real secret is, that we in these happy 
 generation of men have found what the men of old, in spite of 
 their goodness, wisdom, and devotion, blindly felt for, and 
 in vain. 
 
 In argument (oh ! that Missionaries would think of this !) 
 we should seek the common ground, on which both sides can 
 stand, the Adamantine Truth, so far as it is revealed to us : 
 those, who have recourse to abusive language, show that their 
 resources of argument are exhausted ; the most ignorant clergy 
 are always the most arrogant. I quote an anonymous writer : 
 " It is the fancy of an ignorant man, that Creation was made 
 " for him : there are few things, of which he is so utterly 
 " ignorant, and of which he thinks so little, as that mystery 
 " of Himself, incarnated in the temporary prison-house of his 
 " flesh and blood." No prison-house is so fast-bound as the 
 bondage of ignorance, false preconceptions, and obstinate 
 refusal to give play to Sanctified Reason. 
 
 Even among men, professing the same Religion, belonging 
 to the same Church, there are found the strongest differences in 
 the very essentials of Religious Belief and Worship ; there are 
 men of cultivated and uncultivated minds, of strong, and 
 weak intellectual power : so of Races some are stupid and 
 lethargic ; some wonderfully quick in apprehension, and 
 mercurial : the effect of climate has to be considered also, 
 the social environment, access to, or seclusion from, foreign 
 contact, degree of leisure, or total absorption in lawful worldly 
 business. Every mirror does not reflect the object with the 
 same degree of clearness, but all do reflect : so the sweet 
 reasonableness of the doctrine promulgated in Galilee is
 
 ( 170 ) 
 
 intelligible by, and is good for, all, whatever may be their 
 degree of culture, or want of culture, on whatever platform they 
 may be standing of wisdom or unwisdom. This cannot be 
 said of the other two Universal Propagandist Conceptions : in 
 Buddhism there is no God, and it cannot therefore coexist 
 with modern culture, which postulates the existence of a God. 
 Islam fails, as unable to free itself from the bondage of 
 Paganism in still inculcating the worship of a stone, the Kaaba, 
 at Mekka, in still enforcing the degrading rite of mutilating 
 the body of the male sex, made in God's own image, and in 
 refusal to elevate the female sex to the full dignity of a com- 
 panion to man by the hateful practice of Polygamy, and cannot 
 therefore coexist with modern social and civilized conditions. 
 
 The Jewish Idea of God was purified by contact in the Schools 
 of Alexandria with Greek Philosophy, especially Platonic. 
 Anthropomorphic Ideas (which disfigure the Old Testament) 
 were discarded, and the Logos introduced as intermediary 
 between God, the author of all good, and matter which 
 is transitory and evil. (Conybeare's Review of Friedlander's 
 " Entstehung Geschichte" — Jewish Quarterly Review, April, 
 1895, p. 554.) 
 
 The World has not yet learnt to understand the man, who 
 places Christ above all the shibboleths of Churches, who cares 
 a great deal for, in fact has no thought for anything but, Re- 
 ligion, yet places no value on particular Church-organization. 
 There is so much hypocrisy, time-serving, fashion, carelessness 
 of all things, and pretence to be righteous, and therefore to 
 be ready with damnatory opinions of our neighbours. It is 
 well to include among the real followers of Christ all the good 
 and wise of all ages, whether they ran their mental course before 
 the great Anno Domini, and only saw Him far off, or whether 
 they tried humbly to follow Him. It would be well for us all 
 to read and ponder over the following extract from Bishop 
 Beveridge's " Private Thoughts on Religion," Part I, Art. 2 : 
 
 "The general inclinations, which are naturally implanted 
 " in my soul, to some Religion it is impossible for me to shift off; 
 "but there being such a multiplicity of Religions in the world, 
 " I desire now seriously to consider with myself to which of them 
 " all to restrain these my general inclinations. And the reason 
 " of this my enquiry is not, that I am in the least dissatisfied with 
 " that Religion I have already embraced ; but because 'tis natural 
 '■'for all men to have an overbearing opinion and esteem for that 
 " particular Religion they are born and bred up in. That, therefore, 
 " I may not seem biassed by the prejudice of education, I am 
 " resolved to prove and examine them all ; that I may see and 
 " hold fast to that which is best 
 
 "Indeed, there was never any Religion so barbarous and
 
 ( 171 ) 
 
 " diabolical, but it was preferred before all other Religions 
 " whatsoever by them that did profess it; otherwise they would 
 " not have professed it 
 
 " And why, say they, may not you be mistaken as well as we ? 
 " Especially when there is, at least, six to one against your 
 " Christian Religion ; all of whom think they serve God aright ; 
 
 " and expect happiness thereby as well as you And 
 
 " hence it is that in my looking out for the truest Religion, being 
 " conscious to myself how great an ascendant Christianity holds 
 " over me beyond the rest, as being that Religion, whereinto 
 " I was born and baptized, that which the supreme authority 
 " has enjoined and my parents educated me in ; that which 
 " everyone I meet with all highly approve of, and which I 
 " myself have, by a long-continued profession, made almost 
 " natural to me : I am resolved to be more jealous and suspicious 
 " of this Religion, than of the rest, and be sure not to enter- 
 " tain it any longer without being convinced, by solid and 
 " substantial arguments, of the truth and certainty of it. That, 
 "therefore, I may make diligent and impartial enquiry into 
 " all Religions, and so be sure to find out the best, I shall for 
 " a time look upon myself as one not at all interested in any 
 " particular Religion whatsoever, much less in the Christian 
 " Religion ; but only as one who desires, in general, to serve 
 "and obey Him that made me, in a right manner, and thereby 
 " to be made partaker of that happiness my nature is capable of." 
 
 A great French Author, who has lately died, has left us 
 these remarks in a posthumous work : let us all reflect upon 
 them, and ask ourselves whether as regards the exterior form 
 of every Religious conception it is not sadly true. (Renan, 
 " Israel," v, p. 106.) 
 
 " Religion is a necessary imposture : no means of throwing 
 " dust into the eyes can be neglected in dealing with such a 
 " race of fools, as the Human Race, who seem created for the 
 " purpose of imbibing error, and who, even when they admit 
 " the Truth, never do so for the real good reasons." The great 
 majority think nothing about the reasons of their Belief: they 
 accept it. 
 
 The Holy Spirit speaks in the Written Word, and to the 
 conscience and intelligence of all, but He speaks as much now 
 to hearts, which have accepted Him, as He did by the mouths 
 of Prophets, holy men of old: there is an unbroken continuity 
 of Revelation, and Illumination, unrestricted by time or space : 
 the Religious experiences of the sanctified thinkers of the 
 present age are entitled to as much respect as those of the 
 ignorant Hebrew a few centuries before Anno Domini, or the 
 early Christian Fathers of the few centuries after Anno Domini, 
 whose view of the World and mankind was limited to their
 
 ( 172 ) 
 
 own environment. It is quite clear, that there is a distinction 
 between the Word of God, which unquestionably exists in 
 Holy Scripture, and the assertion, that the Scriptures in their 
 totality are absolutely the Word of God. There is a great 
 deal in Professor Driver's remarks, that the proper expression 
 is, "the Word of God mediatized by Human instrumentality"; 
 the book itself is not inspired, but the men, who wrote it, 
 were inspired. 
 
 That only one-third of the population of the Globe is even 
 nominally Christian, is a lamentable fact to record at the close 
 of the Nineteenth Century after Anno Domini. Boasting is 
 excluded. The period of the Jewish Dispensation, from Moses 
 to Anno Domini, barely covered twelve centuries. In that 
 Record there was nothing but Ritual, Miracles, Theophanies, 
 Prophecies, Cruelty, Persecution, Disobedience of the Divine 
 Law, and Ignorance of a Future State of Rewards and Punish- 
 ments. The Sadducees, including the Priests, denied the 
 Resurrection till the last, as is clear from the account of 
 Paul's trial at Jerusalem (Acts, xxiii, 8). 
 
 One of the greatest features of the present Epoch, the close 
 of the Nineteenth Century, is the Historical Spirit, and the 
 domain of History has been enlarged by extending historical 
 principles, and critical analysis, to the History of Religion. 
 Up to this time, Christians on such subjects had a distinct bias 
 one way, and violent opponents of Christianity went to the 
 other extreme. They are now taken up in a cold, secular, im- 
 partial spirit ; evidence is weighed, legends exposed, falsehoods 
 called by their right name. The Church of Rome very soon 
 recognised in such writers their real and greatest enemies, 
 for the History of Religion, truly told, struck a blow at the 
 exaggerated assertions of Revelation and the Supernatural, 
 thus alienating the grossly superstitious, but attracting the 
 really devout seekers after God. A new taste was thus created, 
 and the new Science of Religion sprang into existence. Some 
 illusions have been dispersed ; great and mighty Truths stand 
 out in their full proportions. The Philosophy of History has 
 been correctly described, as being only an attempted inter- 
 pretation of the acts, and thoughts, and works, of men in past 
 ages by the modes of thought and accepted standard and 
 principles of our own. Men in the times of the wars of 
 Assyria and Egypt, of King Asoka in India, of the Emperors 
 of China in the time of Kong-Fu-Tsee, were men of like 
 passions, powers, and weaknesses as ourselves, and the Ruler 
 of the World was the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 It may be, that at the close of the Twentieth Century, other 
 interpretations may be made according to fresh, and hitherto 
 undeveloped, standards of our acts and writings at the present
 
 ( 173 ) 
 
 moment. During the period of a long life, the standard of 
 most individuals, their prejudices, and predilections, have 
 undergone change, and that change tends to increase : " The 
 thoughts of men grow wider with the progress of the Sun." 
 Facts are the only things which remain, facts proved by 
 sufficient evidence, to outlive all generations. Where Tradition 
 or Faith comes in, we seem to be walking on a quagmire. 
 
 Mr. Green, the Historian, remarked that, when he left 
 Arthur Stanley's lecture-room at Oxford, he used to reflect on 
 how many Faiths and Persons the lecturer had discoursed, and 
 how he had taught his readers to love the Truth that was in them 
 all. To Socrates, and Plato, the Unknown God was revealed : 
 the Human mind cannot reach to more profound Truths than 
 those, which they had attained : they saw 7 , or seemed to see, 
 through the mystery of the Universe, but we know now, that 
 they were but the advance-guard of something infinitely greater. 
 The Idea has been hazarded, but by some, who have not 
 studied History, past and present Ethnology, Language, 
 Religious conceptions, ancestral customs, remains of Antiquity 
 in the whole of the Round World, that Christ came in the 
 Fulness of Time, when the Religious Education of the most 
 progressive Races of Mankind was sufficiently advanced to 
 appreciate the Doctrine which He brought. 
 But was it so ? 
 
 What is called in general parlance the World is larger than 
 the basin of the Mediterranean, and the countries on its shores 
 within the limits of the Danube, the Black and Caspian Seas, the 
 Euphrates, the Sahara, and the Atlantic. For many centuries 
 the name even of Christ did not penetrate beyond the area 
 thus defined, viz , the Roman Empire, and the Regions of the 
 Kelts, Teutons, and Slavs. India and China were far advanced 
 in civilization even then, but Gospel-Tidings never reached 
 them. According to the Divine Plan it was the Fulness of 
 Time, but this term did not imply the throwing open of the 
 whole Globe. And now in the Nineteenth Century, when the 
 whole round World is thrown open, the dead weight of Paganism 
 increases annually by the mere generation of children, the 
 repression of slaughter by overpowering Races, the precaution 
 taken against Famines, and the Remedial Measures against 
 Disease. New germs of Religious conception have found Life 
 and Development, and greater enemies to Christianity have 
 come into existence in the form of Mahometanism, Papalism, and 
 Agnosticism. The last state of the World is infinitely worse 
 than the first. If the watchman were asked, " what of the night ?" 
 the reply would be, " very dismal indeed " : if Evangelization 
 were a mere commercial undertaking, it had better be abandoned. 
 Nothing, however, is impossible to God, but the foolish boasting
 
 ( 174 ) 
 
 of the Missionary platform, and the deceptive sensational 
 literature, are excluded. The descendant of the ancient 
 Egyptian, if there is one, will point to the Pyramids, and the 
 long succession of magnificent Monuments, which have lasted 
 five, six, or seven thousand years ; he will point out that to 
 him the world is indebted for the germ of the Alphabet, for the 
 earliest Idea of a Future State of Rewards and Punishments, 
 an Idea which the vaunting Hebrews till the time of the Exile 
 knew not of. 
 
 The descendant of the Greek Race, if there is one of the 
 true stock, will point to the Works of their Dramatists, their 
 Philosophers, their Historians, the foundation of all Science, 
 the fountain of all Poetry, the mine of all Eloquence, the 
 groundwork of the Intellect of Future ages : what form would 
 Christianity have assumed, if the mould of Plato had not been 
 ready to receive the pure Semitic ore ? What does Augustine 
 of Hippo say on this subject ? 
 
 Is there any product of English Art, or Intellect, which is 
 likely to live as long, or outlive, the great Egyptian and Greek 
 Legacies to mankind ? 
 
 It may be said defiantly, that the Greek and Egyptian have 
 passed away; but consider the Religious conceptions and the 
 material structure of the Hindu and Confucianist, still 
 influencing millions, evidencing no sign of decay. The Hindu 
 system, absorbing annually thousands of Nature-worshippers, 
 is still in situ : ancient Inscriptions, speaking from walls, from 
 rocks, from caves, point to the imperishable monuments of 
 Grammatical Method, the development of the Alphabet, the 
 invention of numerals. Consider also the Poets, the Dramatists, 
 the Philosophers, and lastly their spiritual descendants, the 
 Buddhists, the greatest in the present Epoch in numbers. 
 
 The earnest and honest Christian preacher seems sometimes 
 not so much to strive to deliver a man from the just judgment of 
 God for his sins, as to deliver him over to the still more just 
 judgment for refusing to accept the pardon held out to him : 
 the last state of the non-Christian man is made worse than 
 the first : in the first state it was ignorance, the result of long 
 social isolation ; in the second state it is stubborn refusal to 
 accept a free offer : it would have been better thus for the man, 
 if he had not received the Gospel-invitation like his ancestors 
 for hundreds of generations ; he has been called into the Light 
 only to be scorched by that Light, and to receive more certain 
 damnation : it is an awful problem ; we can only fall back on 
 the unlimited Wisdom and Pity of the Creator towards His 
 poor creatures. 
 
 In The Expositor of July, 1893, pp. 49, 50, there appeared 
 a paper by the Rev. H. Rashdall, on " Abelard's Doctrine of
 
 ( 175 ) 
 
 the Atonement," which I have condensed, preserving the 
 original idea. The Church of our day is called upon to 
 reduce Christian teaching to an intelligent, systematic, and 
 coherent body of philosophical doctrine. The Human mind 
 has awakened from a long slumber, and insists, that the 
 traditional dogmas of Christianity should give an account of 
 themselves. It is a noble and stimulating Idea to create a 
 Science of the highest generalization, that should present the 
 deposit of traditional and historic Faith in its due relation 
 to other branches of Knowledge, accepting and forming into 
 itself the Highest and Greatest Truth, that is known from what- 
 ever source, of God, the World, and Man. 
 
 Darwinism and Historical Criticism present a new starting- 
 point : the reconstruction of Christian Doctrine is the great 
 intellectual task of modern Christianity, and it must be done, 
 if Christianity is to retain its hold on the Intellect, as well as 
 on the sentiment and social activities of the time. The 
 Religious conception, which has lost its hold on the Intellect, 
 will not long retain its hold on the social activities. No two 
 ages can ever be exactly alike : the wants of one age are some- 
 times found to have been anticipated, but the old Truth is 
 differently expressed from the modern. 
 
 The same writer, at the Church Congress, 1894, expressed 
 himself in this way : 
 
 " It cannot be too distinctly understood, that the 
 " originality of Christianity is not to be disproved, by show- 
 " ing that some of the most characteristic utterances of the 
 " Gospel maxims can be more or less closely paralleled 
 " by isolated sayings in Pagan moralists or non-Christian 
 " Sacred Books. The unique claim, which Christianity makes, 
 " alike in Theology and in Ethics, is to absorb into itself, 
 " to harmonize and combine, all that is true and per- 
 " manently valuable in previous systems, or, to speak in 
 " Religious language, in previous and partial revelations of 
 " God. And, first, a word as to the sense, in which alone 
 " Christianity claims to be in any sense a complete or ethical 
 " revelation. If our Lord and His immediate followers had 
 " pretended to set forth an Ethical Code, which in detail should 
 " anticipate the course of intellectual and social development, 
 " and contain definite rules of conduct capable of immediate 
 " application alike to the Slave-holding Society of the ancient 
 " world, to the feudal society of the eleventh century, and to 
 " the conditions of modern England, the Teacher who made 
 " such an attempt would be justly chargeable with having mis- 
 " conceived the very nature of the new message to Mankind." 
 The difficulty in dealing with such discussions as these is, that 
 the one side believes everything, and the other nothing, whereas
 
 ( 176 ) 
 
 the Truth is in the midst. An old archdeacon, a few years 
 before his death, confessed to me, that he could no longer 
 justify the morals of King David and King Solomon, as he 
 had done, when he took Holy Orders, for then the Scriptures, 
 and all matters connected with Religion, were removed out of 
 the orbit of Human events, and the Hebrew Story and Books 
 were deemed to be unique in the History of the World. 
 
 Professor Huxley attached the following meaning to 
 Agnosticism, which he defines not as a creed but a method: 
 The essence of the method is as old as Socrates, and reinforced 
 by Descartes, and the fundamental maxim of Modern Science. 
 The principle may be expressed Positively : in matters of 
 Intellect follow your reason, as far as it will take you, without 
 regard to any other consideration. Negatively : in matters of 
 the Intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain, which 
 are not demonstrated, or demonstrable. (Athenaeum, May 4, 
 1895, par. 672.) 
 
 Can we imagine any Native Sovereign of an Indian Kingdom 
 conducting his affairs in the manner described in the Books 
 of Kings and Chronicles ? one Sovereign putting up altars to 
 one set of Deities, and compelling the people to worship ; in a 
 few years his son pulls them all down, and puts to death the 
 Priests, while irresponsible herdsmen, or ascetics, appear and 
 disappear at intervals threatening the kings, and inciting his 
 subjects to rebellion : can we wonder that utter ruin of such 
 a political system was the consequence ? 
 
 The teaching of Christ, in whom was centred all Wisdom, 
 Human as well as Divine, was not political : He did not object 
 to pay tribute as a subject to an Earthly Emperor ; he preached 
 no narrow Theocracy of one petty tribe amidst the Millions 
 of Mankind, as if the whole world was not, and always had 
 been, governed by God. A secular Monarchy is a wiser and 
 safer Minister of God's decrees than a debased Priesthood, 
 whether at Jerusalem or Rome, Constantinople or Lassa : Christ 
 came into the world, not for restoration of the Hebrew 
 Kingdom, but for the happiness of all God's poor children: His 
 Kingdom was not of this world ; and rested on Man's love of 
 God, and Love of his neighbour ; there were to be no longer 
 circumcised Jews, or uncircumcised Gentiles. Mankind, through 
 His teaching in its entirety, and most remote futurity, were to 
 be set free from the bondage of Sin, secret and open, of 
 merciless and capricious fanatic Rulers, of old-world exploded 
 notions of ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness, which had 
 vexed the elder Nations, and vexes the Hindu Millions still, 
 of Puritanic Sabbaths, washing of pots and pans, consecrated 
 hypocrisy, domineering Priesthoods, whom He called a genera- 
 tion of Vipers. He abolished the fear of Death : " Fear not
 
 ( 177 ) 
 
 those who kill the body," and placed the doctrine of a Future 
 State of Rewards and Punishments on a basis, that can never 
 be shaken. 
 
 If the object of Religion is to bring Peace into the world, 
 to protect the rights of the weak, to maintain purity of morals 
 between the sexes, to bring down the proud, and exalt the 
 humble and the weak, it must be admitted that : 
 
 I. It has as entirely failed in its object, as the Jewish Theocracy 
 of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah. 
 
 II. The precepts of all Religions have been above the 
 heads, and beyond the comprehension, of the great majority 
 of mankind, even if they had wished to understand them. 
 
 III. Each Religious Conception, succeeding its predecessor 
 in order of time, has unconsciously, but yet tenaciously, absorbed 
 so much of the rank vegetation of its predecessor, that its 
 power of doing good has been choked, or absolutely destroyed. 
 
 IV. At all periods of History and at the present moment, 
 there have existed those to whom all Religious Conceptions, 
 or dogmatic creeds, are equally false, and yet who make use 
 of them to influence and control their foolish contemporaries, 
 for in their opinion the sole object of Religious Conceptions 
 and dogmas has been to deceive the unlearned, and keep them 
 in subjection. 
 
 But what of the Future ? Nothing is known, as a fact. By 
 what measure will the dead, as they rise from the grave, be 
 judged in the great hall of adjudication ? Will it be a question 
 of empty rites and habiliments ? Will not those, who have 
 wasted their lives in controversy about matters as trivial as the 
 tithe of anise and cummin, moan, that they have never known 
 Christ ? Dost thou believe in Christ, and Him crucified ? That 
 will perhaps be the question. Hast thou loved God and thy 
 neighbours ? That will certainly be the qualification. The 
 secret is unrevealed ; the mystery is as dark as in the time of 
 the construction of the Egyptian Pyramids. 
 
 " Where wert thou, Brother, those four days ? 
 
 " There lives no record of reply, 
 
 " Which telling what it is to die 
 " Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 " Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 
 " The rest remaineth unrevealed : 
 " He told it not; or something sealed 
 
 " The lips of the Evangelist." 
 
 (Tennyson: In Memoriam, xxxi.) 
 
 12
 
 ( 178 ) 
 
 Just as I was laying down my pen, and adding a few 
 references and quotations, a friend to whom I described my 
 work, mentioned a book by the late Viscount Amberley, " An 
 Analysis of Religious Belief, 1876," covering the same ground, 
 which I had never seen, nor heard of: I at once sent for it, 
 and read it as far as my subject goes : in his last 300 pages 
 he describes the great sages before Anno Domini : I gather 
 from the address to the Reader by a third person unknown, 
 that the Author died before the book appeared, and " that he 
 had parted with portions of that Faith, which in boyhood, 
 and early youth, had been the mainspring of his life. I 
 myself, see no reason, why such an inquiry, purely historical, 
 as he made, and such as I have made twenty years later, with 
 wider knowledge of the East, and of the ancient Religions 
 of the World than he could have had, should lead to the least 
 doubt as to the absolute Truth of Christianity: if I thought 
 so, I should drop the pen at once. 
 
 The Author has made a very good analysis as far as it goes. 
 His division of the Subject into " Communications Upward," 
 and "Communications Downward," is ingenious and useful 
 (page 15). 
 
 I. Upward. 
 A. Consecrated Actions 
 
 B. Consecrated Places . 
 
 C. Consecrated Objects 
 
 D. Consecrated Persons 
 
 (0 Prayer. 
 
 (*: 
 
 Sacrifice. 
 
 (3) 
 
 Ritual. 
 
 (4^ 
 
 Festivals. 
 
 (5) 
 
 Initiatory-rites. 
 
 (6) 
 
 Puberty-rites. 
 
 (7) 
 
 Matrimonial-rites. 
 
 (»: 
 
 Funeral-rites. 
 
 (1 
 
 ) Temples. 
 
 c* 
 
 ) Shrines. 
 
 (i; 
 
 ) Garments. 
 
 « 
 
 Tablets. 
 
 (3: 
 
 ) Temple-furniture. 
 
 (4: 
 
 ) Fetich. 
 
 (5 
 
 ) Land. 
 
 (1" 
 
 ) Ascetics. 
 
 (2 
 
 ) Monks and Nuns. 
 
 (3 
 
 ) Devotees. 
 
 (4 
 
 ) Fakirs. 
 
 E. Consecrated Mediator 
 
 Priest.
 
 I / 
 
 II. Downward. 
 A. Holy Events . . 
 
 . . . . (i) Dreams. 
 
 (2) Omens. 
 
 (3) Divination. 
 
 (4) Ordeals. 
 
 (5) Miracles. 
 
 B. Holy Places (0 Groves and Trees. 
 
 (2) Graves. 
 
 C. Holy Objects (1) Fetich. 
 
 (2) Amulets. 
 
 (3) Relics. 
 
 D. Holy Orders (0 Priests. 
 
 (2) Faith Healers. 
 
 (3) Inspired Persons. 
 
 E. Holy Persons 
 
 (1) Rainmakers. 
 
 (2) Prophets. 
 
 (3) Writers of Sacred Books. 
 
 Let me add a quotation : 
 
 " We love what we are used to. We revere the ancient. We 
 " all have roots in the venerable Past. This is well. Yet the 
 " grandest arena of God's working is the future. A Christian's 
 " treasure should be there. Ours is a Religion of hope, of 
 " expectation, an onlooking to golden ages yet to come. 
 " Blessed were those Jews in our Lord's time who stood 
 " waiting for His coming ready to receive Him with open 
 " hearts. Blessed too are the foreseeing men and women of all 
 " ages, who are always watching for the morning ; praying 
 " for great things, working for great things, expecting great 
 " things ; bending forward and listening for the prophetic 
 " voices ; quick to see the great light in the heavens, when it 
 " first gilds the tops of the eastern hills." 
 
 But what about the Future of the Kingdom of Heaven upon 
 Earth ? will it bear the strain of the Twentieth Century ? The 
 Words of Christ, and the Life of Christ, are indeed good for 
 all time, because in them is the supreme essence of good, but 
 the form, in which those words were delivered, the environment 
 in which that Life was manifested, was adapted to the com- 
 prehension of Syrian Peasants, and was levelled against the 
 low, narrow-minded degradation of Hebrew Priests, and cannot 
 be deemed binding upon all generations of men in after ages, 
 endued, as they are, with enlarged spiritual gifts, more exalted
 
 ( iso ) 
 
 Divine leadings, and greater Human possibilities. His Spirit 
 worked with His Apostles John and Paul, and enabled the 
 former to recall, after an interval of forty years, words of the 
 Master previously unrecorded, and one mighty miracle, which 
 had apparently never come to the knowledge of the earlier 
 Evangelists ; with the latter that Spirit worked in the develop- 
 ment of theories entirely new, of which there is no fore- 
 shadowing, or even germ, in the three first Gospels, though 
 they were written at a date later than Paul's Epistles, in which 
 those theories, setting aside the Mosaic dispensation, are 
 stated. At the last verse of the New Testament an absolute 
 line must be drawn. It must be presumed that the work of 
 Inspiration is closed for ever, through the agency of Prophets 
 and Apostles. 
 
 It suited the powers, Civil and Ecclesiastical, of Rome and 
 Constantinople, to erect a new edifice on Hellenic, Judaeic, 
 and Pagan foundations, and to publish Edicts, backed by 
 anathemas and intolerant savagery. The world is not the 
 worse for those terrible anathemas, and understands how far 
 removed from the fundamental precepts of Christianity those 
 men must have been, who attempted to enforce Spiritual 
 doctrines by the help of carnal penalties and disabilities. 
 Their game at the end of the Nineteenth Century is played 
 out ; there is an Arab Proverb, that Curses, like foul birds, 
 come home at night to roost in the nest, which they left in 
 the morning. The Christian is not in bondage to an ignorant 
 and superstitious Past : he is, indeed, the heir of all the ages, 
 but he has the grace conceded to him by the Spirit of Christ, 
 which is immanent in each of God's poor creatures, who 
 have accepted Him, to use his inheritance, his privileges, 
 and opportunities wisely. 
 
 I doubt not, that the nascent Churches of Asia, Africa, and 
 Oceania, will assert their right to sweep away the accretions 
 of ignorant, arrogant, mediaeval, European Christianity, and 
 go back to the words and example of their Master, who lived 
 and died amidst Asiatics in Asia. New forms of Christianity 
 may appear from an Asiatic matrix, and free themselves from 
 the effete ligaments of mediaeval Europe.
 
 ( 181 ) 
 
 atuipteo from t\jt pcrgran. 
 
 Abraham was seated just outside his tent, 
 Expecting friends, on social cheer intent : 
 Before his eyes an ancient man appears, 
 Weighed down with burden of long miles, and years 
 Abraham in Oriental fashion rose, 
 Begged him to be his guest, and take repose. 
 In courteous conversation passed the meal, 
 And each for each respect began to feel : 
 But, when the servants cleared away the board, 
 Abraham stood up alone, and thanked the Lord ; 
 And those, who sat at meat, with reverent air 
 Echoed his thanks, then closed their eyes in prayer; 
 Except the stranger, who with look benign 
 Looked round upon them all, and made no sign. 
 Abraham rebuked him : " Art thou silent, when 
 We thank our God for His good gifts to men ?" 
 The stranger quietly replied, that he 
 Except the " Fire " knew no Divinity. 
 Exceeding anger Abraham's bosom tore : 
 He rose to drive the stranger from his door ; 
 When a celestial light made him aware, 
 That a high Messenger of God stood there, 
 Who calmly spoke : " Abraham, thy God appears 
 " To grant this man a life of ninety years. 
 " Him has He fed with oil, and wine, and corn, 
 " And given him children's children to be born. 
 " If God, who knows each heart, restrains His ire, 
 " Because His creatures stoop to worship Fire, 
 " Are you to drive this man from your abode, 
 " And be less merciful to him than God ? 
 
 " Listen, while I expound the ceaseless Grace 
 " Of God's high dealings with the Human Race : 
 " 'Tis not the symbol, creed, or form of prayer, 
 " Which man's relation to his God declare : 
 " He reads the heart : full many a Saint has trod 
 " This earth, nor once pronounced the name of God. 
 " A God impersonal can thee inspire ; 
 " He in his ignorance sees God in Fire; 
 " Others with simple and untutored minds
 
 ( 182 ) 
 
 See God in clouds, and hear Him in the winds ; 
 Some to the Heavenly Host their homage pay ; 
 Some grovelling lower bow to gods of clay. 
 To each of His poor children God gives rest : 
 Many the soul, which Love of God has blest. 
 The heart of Man for his Creator burns, 
 Just as the Sunflower to the Sunbeam turns. 
 To some God sends His Revelation's light, 
 And yet leaves millions in darkest night. 
 He claims no homage, where He is not known ; 
 He will not reap, where He has never sown. 
 Darest thou dispute His Wisdom, or His might ? 
 Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right ? 
 Ask thou the heathen, whose beclouded sense 
 Scarce knows 'twixt Death and Life the difference, 
 Who makes the beauteous fruit on trees to grow ; 
 Piles up the hills ; lets conquering rivers flow ; 
 Sends rain in season ; fills the fields with corn ; 
 Lets cattle multiply, and babes be born ? 
 Will he not bow the head, and point to Heaven, 
 Feel for the Hand, by which all is given ? 
 Millions on millions pass away unhealed, 
 Because God never has Himself revealed. 
 The knowledge of His Truth Man has not known, 
 Because no Prophet has that knowledge shown ; 
 And if, till Time be full, His will He veils, 
 Where is the sin, if Man in duty fails ? 
 If thy rash anger more restrained had been, 
 This aged man his error might have seen : 
 For Faith may fail, and Hope itself remove ; 
 Poor Human hearts are won by conquering Love. 
 
 "Abraham, look down the vale of woe and tears, 
 Through which thy children must pass many years ; 
 Thou wilt descry worked-out a wondrous Plan, 
 Thy Lord, thy God, disguised in form of Man. 
 Rejoice, that thou far off hast seen His day : 
 Be still and silent : turn thee in and pray; 
 Pray that, their errors and their blindness past, 
 All God's poor children may find God at last." 
 
 London, December $lst, 1893.
 
 ( 183 ) 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Ecce Homo. Seeley. 
 
 Ancient Religion of Egypt. Hibbert-Lecture, Renonf. 
 
 Mythology of Arian Nations. Cox. 
 
 Sacred Anthology. McClure Conway. 
 
 Bible-Echo in Classics. Ramage. 
 
 Bhagavad-Gita and Christianity. Taivney (Calcutta Review, 
 
 Jan. 1876). 
 Christianity and Paganism. St. G. Mivart (Nineteenth Century, 
 
 1895). 
 
 Religions of the World and their Relation to Christianity. 
 Maurice. 
 
 Mexico and Peru. Revillc. 
 
 Religion of Semitic Races. Robertson Smith. 
 
 Religion of a literary man. Le Galliene. 
 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall. 
 
 Homer: Iliad and Odyssey. 
 
 Virgil : ^Eneid, Eclogue No. iv. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Juvenal. 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 Claudian. 
 
 Jewish Quarterly Review. 
 
 Monuments and Higher Criticism. Sayce. 
 
 Religion of Babylonia: Hibbert-Lectures, Sayce. 
 
 Message of Man. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1895. 
 
 God and Man in the Chinese Classics : a short story of Con- 
 fucian Theology. /. C. Hoare, Ningpo, 1895. 
 
 Essay on Greek Tragedy. Froade. 
 
 Dionysian Mysteries. Review by Cox. Saturday Review, 
 June, 1876. 
 
 Gifford-Lectures : Theosophy. Max Mailer, 1892. 
 
 Survivals in Christianity. Woods, U.S., 1893.
 
 ( 184 ) 
 
 Distinctive Messages of Ancient Religion. Maihieson, 1893. 
 
 Words on Existing Religions. Canning, 1892. 
 
 The Coffee-house of Surat. Review of Reviews, March 
 
 15, 1893. Tolstoi. 
 Fire-gleams of Christianity. C. Newton Scott. 
 Homeric Theology. Gladstone, 1890. 
 Gesta Christi. Loring Brace, 1883. 
 Unknown God. Do. 1890. 
 
 Beginning of Religion. Bacon. 
 Childhood of Religion. Clodd. 
 Fundamentals. Griffith. 
 
 Bases of Religious Belief. Hibbert-Lecture, Upton. 
 Natural Theology. Gifford-Lecture, Stokes. 
 Modern Scepticism compared with Christian Faith. Kaufman. 
 Christ in Modern Theology. Fairbairn. 
 Religion and Science. Bampton-Lectures, Temple. 
 Ditto Ditto. Hatch. 
 
 The Psalms. Ditto. Cheyne. 
 
 Inspiration. Ditto. Sanday, 1893. 
 
 Genesis and Growth of Religion. Kellogg, U.S. 
 Evolution of Religion. Caird. 
 Report of Palestine Exploration. 
 Faith and Criticism. 
 Biblical Critics. 
 Verbum Dei. Horton. 
 Christ, and modern Unbelief. 
 Did Moses write the Pentateuch ? Spencer. 
 Hebrew Idolatry and Superstition. Higgins, 1893. 
 Hours of Thought. Martineau. 
 The Chronicles in relation to the Pentateuch. Hervey, Bishop 
 
 of Bath and Wells, 1893. 
 Gospel of Life. Westcott, 1893. 
 Lehrbuch der Religion Geschicht. De Saussaye. 
 Religion of the Future. Momerie, Dec, 1892. 
 Religious Thought in the West. Westcott. 
 Classical Essays : (1) Greek Oracles, (2) Virgil. Meyer. 
 Confucius and Christ. Legge. 
 Revue des Religions. French Periodical. 
 De Natura Deorum. Cicero. 
 Life of Cicero. Middleton. 
 Rivers of Life. Finlay. 2 vols., quarto. 
 Hibbert-Lecture, Buddhism. Rhys Davids. 
 Buddhism, S.P.C.K. Do. 
 
 The Unseen World, and other Essays. Fiske, Boston, U.S. 
 
 (1) Jesus of History, 1870. 
 
 (2) Christ of Dogma, 1870. 
 
 Histoire de dogme de la divinity de J6sus Christ. Reville, 1869.
 
 ( 185 ) 
 
 Jesus of History. Anonymous. Williams and Norgate, 1869. 
 
 Vie de Jesus. Renan. 
 
 St. Paul. Do. 
 
 Histoire de la peuple Israel. Renan. 
 
 Dawn of Civilization. Maspero, 1894. 
 
 Erasmus. Froude, 1894. 
 
 Thoughts on Religion. Romanes. 
 
 Studies in Biblical Archaeology. Jacob, 1895. 
 
 Early spread of Religious Ideas in the Far East. Edkins, 
 
 China, 1893. 
 Beginning of Religion. Bacon. 
 Pantheistic Philosophy. Adol. F ranch. 
 Expositor. Monthly periodical. 
 Expository Times. Do. 
 Critical Review. Do. 
 
 Chief Ancient Philosophies. S.P.C.K., 1895. 
 
 (1) Platonism. Strong. 
 
 (2) Neo-Platonism. Bigg. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East. Max Miiller. 
 
 Ancient Religions. S.P.C.K. 
 
 Indian Mythology : Vishnu Purana. FitzEdward Hall. 
 
 ,, Classical Dictionary of. Dowson. 
 
 Buddhist Birth-stories or Jataka. Fausbull and Rhys Davids. 
 Indian Folk-lore. Sir H. Elliott and Beames. 
 Indian Mythology. John Muir. 
 History of Religion. Menzies, 1895. 
 Progressive Revelation. Caillard, 1895. 
 Problems of Christianity and Scepticism. Harison, 1894. 
 The Religions of the World. Grant, 1894. 
 Expositor's Bible. 
 
 Zur Entstehung geschichte der Christenthum. Friedlander, 1894. 
 Florilegium Philonis. Jewish Quarterly Review. Montefioie, 1895. 
 Philo Judasus. Drnmmond, 1882. 2 vols. 
 Via, Veritas, Vita. Hibbert-Lecture, Drummond. 
 History of Egypt. Petrie, 1895.
 
 ( 187 ) 
 
 A. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES. 
 
 (See also Classification of the Subject, page xxiii.) 
 
 A 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abu Simbul 35 
 
 Accadian idea of thunder ... 89 
 ^Eneid, the Roman Bible. . .129 
 Afflatus claimed by all Reformers 134 
 African, cruel treatment of . .157 
 African, Religious acts . . • 39 
 
 Agnosticism 13, 176 
 
 Ahaz, dial of 90 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle Cathedral . . 47 
 
 Alphabet 138 
 
 Altruism . . . . ,. . . . 160 
 
 Amen Ra 8, 58 
 
 Ancestor Worship .... 28, 43 
 
 Angels 26, 28, 29 
 
 Anger of Deity 87 
 
 Animism 28, 159 
 
 Anthropology xiii 
 
 Anthropomorphism 170 
 
 Anthropos, derivation .... 3 
 Apollonius of Tyana . . . . 77 
 
 Aria-Somaj 13 
 
 Aristophanes 49 
 
 Ashur 8 
 
 Assyrian 2 
 
 Astrology 41, 68 
 
 Astronomy xiii 
 
 Augurs 80 
 
 Augustus, Emperor, Worship of 43 
 Austrian Emperors' Burial . . 94 
 
 Avatara 33, 142, 162 
 
 Azteks 18 
 
 B 
 
 Babi Sect xviii 
 
 Babylonian idea of Future State 102 
 
 20 
 120 
 
 xviii 
 
 13 
 79 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Balaam 6j 
 
 Banaras, prisoners at .... 68 
 
 temples 149 
 
 Barbarians, conceptions of . 5, 98 
 
 Beads, counting of 66 
 
 Beatification of Monks ... 76 
 Bel and the Dragon .... 49 
 
 Bhagavadgita 58 
 
 Bona Dea 81 
 
 Book of the Dead 132 
 
 Book Religions . 
 Book Worship . 
 Brahmanist . 
 Brahmo-Somaj . 
 Brittany, treatment of a Saint 
 Buddha, 5, 6, 70, 75, 131, 137, 
 141, 142, 144, 159, 160 
 
 Buddhist xviii, 170 
 
 Bull-fight, a pious offering . .110 
 
 Calvin on Bible 124 
 
 Cannibalism 93 
 
 Caste-marks 13 
 
 Cattle-killing (India) .... 148 
 
 Centurion at Crucifixion ... 23 
 
 Charms 67 
 
 Chemosh 18 
 
 Children suffering for parents . 86 
 China, Emperor prays for all . 59 
 no Priesthood 67 
 
 persecution 
 
 Christian, a census -term . . 
 Christian Polytheism . . 
 Christian Religion, features of 
 Christian Sects 
 
 147 
 
 163 
 
 24 
 
 3 
 
 2
 
 ( 138 ) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chronicles, characteristic of . .137 
 Churches, Pagan decorations . 63 
 
 confiscation by other 
 
 Religions 63 
 
 Cicero 1, Si 
 
 Circumcision 13, 109 
 
 Cleanness or uncleanness ... 68 
 Clement of Alexandria . . 
 Clergyman, prayers of aged . 
 Collection of children's heads 
 
 Comet in India 
 
 Comparison unjust of Religions 
 
 Confucianist 
 
 Constantine, vision of . 
 Continuance of non-Christian 
 
 Religions 
 
 Contracts ratified by Sacrifice 
 Coptic Priests doing castration 
 Corybantes, dancing of 
 Court practices, modern . 
 Covenant made by God 
 Criminal Laws, effect of . 
 Criticism, Higher . . 
 Cuneiform 
 
 61 
 
 50 
 
 88 
 
 xxi 
 
 xviii 
 
 77 
 
 12 
 
 5i 
 no 
 
 66 
 
 107 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 xiv 
 138 
 
 Cyrus 134, 16S 
 
 D 
 
 Daniel 1 20 
 
 Daniel, Book of ...... 80 
 
 Daphne, the laurel 143 
 
 Darius 134 
 
 Date of earliest book in familiar 
 
 use 120 
 
 David xv 
 
 character of 137, 168 
 
 Destruction of temples by light- 
 ning 89 
 
 Devils, possessed by .... 28 
 Divine Beings, minor . . . 28, 32 
 
 E 
 
 Ecce Homo xix 
 
 Egyptian Book of Dead . . .132 
 
 Egyptian idea of Future State . 102 
 
 Erasmus xix 
 
 Euripides 81, 106, 107 
 
 Exaggeration , 135, 138 
 
 Expositor 124 
 
 Expository Times 82 
 
 F 
 
 Familiar Spirits 29 
 
 Farrar on Orthodoxy .... 4 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Farrar, hyperbole 134 
 
 Fate 16 
 
 G 
 
 Geography xvi, 128 
 
 Geology xiii 
 
 God, names of 17 
 
 Goodness of Human Race . .158 
 Gospel, Apocryphal .... 141 
 Grceco- Roman cult, no Sacred 
 
 books 126 
 
 Greek, sentiments of . . . .174 
 
 H 
 
 Halo, pseudo-, of ancient books 132 
 Hau-Hau of New Zealand . . 13 
 Heavenly Host, Worship of . . 41 
 Henry VIII, life of .... 139 
 
 Heraclitus 8, 29 
 
 Heretics 150 
 
 Hero Worship 143 
 
 Hieroglyphics 138 
 
 Higher Criticism 119 
 
 Hindu Sages xix 
 
 Hindu idea of Future State . . 103 
 
 History xvi 
 
 Homer ... 2, 26, 58, 83, 129 
 Horace . . xv, 2, 16, 54, 79, 80 
 Human Sacrifice .... 48, 50 
 
 Huxley 176 
 
 Hymns of the Veda .... 58 
 
 I 
 
 Ideas disparaging to the Wisdom 
 
 of God xviii 
 
 Idolatry called whoredom . .135 
 Idols of the den, theatre, etc. . xvi 
 
 exhibition of 5 
 
 Incantations 67 
 
 Indian, remarks of a thoughtful 40 
 
 only father of family prays 59 
 
 Inquiry of the Lord .... 80 
 
 Inspiration 1 14 
 
 Isaiah 17, 79, *33 
 
 Isis, Worship of 13 
 
 J 
 
 Januarius, liquefaction of blood . 78 
 Japan, spitting prayers on Buddha 59 
 
 Jerome 7 
 
 Jews xviii, 6, 12 
 
 Day of Atonement ... 70
 
 ( 139 ) 
 
 PAGE 
 Job 120 
 
 John the Apostle . . xvi, 128, 137 
 
 Jonah 17 
 
 Jordanus, Monk 81 
 
 Joseph, dream 26 
 
 Jupiter 29 
 
 Justin Martyr .... 7, 8, 41 
 
 K 
 
 Kaaba-Stone 13. 33 
 
 pilgrimage to ... 44, 46 
 
 Kabala 68 
 
 Karma, what was it ? . . . . 16 
 
 Khalifa Abdullah 76 
 
 Khama 67 
 
 Kingdoms of the earth exaggerated 136 
 Knowledge more or less crude . xiv 
 Kong-Fu-Tsee, xix, 5, 127, 131, 
 
 144, 159 
 Koran .... 120, 128, 131, 135 
 
 Krishna 19, 137, 142 
 
 L 
 
 Languages 13, 121 
 
 Later conceptions of the Deity . 33 
 
 Lazarus, raising of 138 
 
 Leaders, heavenly in battle . . 75 
 
 Legends, oral 139 
 
 Lent, dispensations .... 69 
 Lepers, burying alive . . . .110 
 
 Libations 5 2 
 
 Library, dangers of ancient . .118 
 
 Lingam 33 
 
 Literary frauds 117 
 
 Liturgical xx 
 
 Logic xvi 
 
 Aoyos xvi 
 
 Lucretius 5 1 
 
 Luther xix 
 
 M 
 
 Madonna Statue 33 
 
 Magical Arts 67 
 
 Mahdi 76 
 
 Manetho 119 
 
 Manichaeism 13 
 
 Manu's Code 127 
 
 Marathi Hindu observing Maho- 
 metan customs .... 66 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 8 
 
 Marriage ceremonies . . . .144 
 
 Mars' Hill 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Martyrdom no test of true 
 
 Religion 158 
 
 Matrimony introduced into South 
 
 India no 
 
 Memory of Repeaters . . . .112 
 
 Meru, Mount 24 
 
 Messages of different Nations . 6 
 Mexican idea of Future State . 103 
 Milton, Paradise Lost . . . .117 
 
 Miracles 75 
 
 are possible 165 
 
 Missionaries . 12, 13, 149, 150, 154 
 Missionary Manual, India . . 30 
 
 Mithraism 13 
 
 Monogamy 138, 158 
 
 Montefiore 42 
 
 Moses 5, 19 
 
 Mother, Worship of the Great . 13 
 Myths 129, 140 
 
 N 
 
 Naini Devi 25 
 
 Nakedness of barbarous tribes . Ill 
 Naphtha Springs, Jowala Mukhi 41 
 Naples, wells for the dead . . 94 
 Nathan, the Prophet .... 144 
 Nebuchadnezzar's Image . . . 148 
 
 Neith or Athene 18 
 
 New Guinea, disposal of dead . 93 
 New Religious Conceptions . . 13 
 
 Nirvana 106 
 
 Non-Christian world . . . 4, 1 1 
 Nuk pa nuk 18 
 
 O 
 
 Object of Worship, Agni Purana 36 
 Offerings to demi-gods ... 49 
 Old people killed by their children 94 
 
 Olympus, Mount 24 
 
 Opium-Trade 57, 86 
 
 Oracles 80, 83 
 
 Ordeals 85 
 
 Orestes and Furies 90 
 
 Orientation of Churches ... 25 
 
 Orthodoxy 149, 154 
 
 Osiris 101, 142 
 
 Ovid 26 
 
 Outfit of Human Race .... 39 
 
 P 
 
 Paganism, Messages of 6 
 
 in Christian Churches . 38, 65 
 
 Palermo, dead monks .... 94
 
 ( 190 ) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Paul the Apostle . . . . i, 109 
 
 Penance 64, 70 
 
 Perfection of God 22 
 
 Pericles 8 
 
 Persecution xviii, 147 
 
 Peter the Apostle 150 
 
 Phidias 8 
 
 Philo xvi, 9, 117 
 
 Philosophy, two nations only . 127 
 
 Phineas 168 
 
 Pictures 161 
 
 Pilgrimage 44 
 
 Plato, xvi, xix, 1, 5, 7, 81, 112, 
 128, 173 
 
 Plutarch 30 
 
 Poetical Rhapsody 136 
 
 Polygamy and Concubinage 144, 158 
 Population of the world . . 11, 12 
 
 Post-Office Bugle 68 
 
 Priestcraft xx, 6 
 
 Primitive Revelation .... 30 
 Progress of Religious Conception 48 
 
 Prophecy in India 81 
 
 Prophets commissioned by God . 1 7 
 
 interference with civil power 184 
 
 Purgatory 162 
 
 Pythagoras xix 
 
 Pythagoreans, new 80 
 
 Q 
 
 R 
 
 Races, degraded position of . .157 
 
 Rags on trees 41 
 
 Rain, praying for 89 
 
 Rama .... 19, 141, 142, 162 
 Rameses II, Mummy of ... 93 
 
 Ramzan fast 69, 70 
 
 Reading, limited power of . .115 
 
 Relics 46 
 
 Religion, the highest outcome . 5 
 
 the universal feature ... 1 1 
 
 Religious belief disappearing . 163 
 
 instinct 30, 31 
 
 Rewards and Punishments . . 98 
 Rock Inscriptions . . . 112, 115 
 Rome, Church of . . . . 13, 15 
 
 Romish converts 46 
 
 Romish Shrines 26 
 
 Rumour 83 
 
 S 
 
 Sacerdotalism 65, 67 
 
 Sacred Books 126 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sacrifice, sheep in Syria ... 48 
 
 savour of 48 
 
 female chastity .... 49 
 
 different kinds and motives 49 
 
 low and high view of . . 50 
 
 ■ Hindu view of the power of 51 
 
 institution outgrown ... 52 
 
 Sacrilege, what is it ? . . . . 54 
 
 Sadducees 172 
 
 Saints take place of demi-gods . 43 
 
 Sanskrit 130 
 
 Sargon 140 
 
 Satan 26 
 
 Science xiii 
 
 new worlds of xviii 
 
 Scientific treatment of Religion . 72 
 
 Seneca 2 
 
 Serapis 81 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of .... 60 
 
 Sign of coming events .... 90 
 
 Simple conceptions of early Man 42 
 
 Sins of Christian cities ... 21 
 
 Sneezing 83 
 
 Socrates, xix, 5, 7, 26, 49, 131, 
 144, 169, 173 
 
 Solomon xv, 136, 137 
 
 Spider's web 77 
 
 Spirits 38, 47, 92 
 
 Spurgeon 46 
 
 State Colleges, effect on youth . 146 
 
 Statues 161 
 
 Stones with marks of feet . . 75 
 
 Superstition in modern times . 84 
 
 Survey of mankind xvi 
 
 Synagogue Rolls 114 
 
 Talipat Palm-leaf 1 18 
 
 Tattooing 13 
 
 Teraphim 43 
 
 Theosophism 13 
 
 Therianthropic 42 
 
 Tibetan Buddhist 54 
 
 Prayer-wheel 60 
 
 Times, places, seasons . • 7 1 
 
 Tobit 28, 76 
 
 Tolerance 3 
 
 Torquemada 150 
 
 Tragedians I, 1 7, 58 
 
 Transmigration 98 
 
 Tree and Serpent Worship . . 41 
 
 Troitska, Russia 63 
 
 Truth .... xiv, xvii, 5, 13, 169
 
 ( 191 ) 
 
 U 
 
 U-Ganda .... 
 
 prayers of two sides . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 124 
 . 61 
 
 Ulysses, prayer of 59 
 
 Unfair treatment of non-Christian 
 
 Religions 9 
 
 Universality of Religious Truth 2, 18 
 Unseen and unknown Power . 1 
 Uzza 87 
 
 Veda 131, 135 
 
 Vespasian 81 
 
 Virgil 2, 58, 76, 129 
 
 Voices, heavenly 29 
 
 W 
 
 Week, names of days . 
 
 4i 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Widow-burning no 
 
 Wisdom xvi, 31 
 
 Worship I 
 
 mockery of Nineteenth 
 
 Century 37 
 
 X 
 
 Yahveh, only God of Israel . . 32 
 
 Zaragossa 47 
 
 Zeus 32 
 
 Zoroaster xix, 26, 159
 
 ( 192 ) 
 
 B. INDEX OF QUOTATIONS. 
 
 A 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abu ben Adhem (Leigh Hunt) . 160 
 
 Adrian to his Soul 105 
 
 Statue of Memnon ... 29 
 
 /Eschylus 102 
 
 Alcuin 150 
 
 Amberley, Viscount . . . .178 
 
 Aratus 4 
 
 Aristotle 81 
 
 Assur-bani-pal 82 
 
 Athene, offering to 36 
 
 Augustine of Hippo . . • 7> J 1 
 
 Aztek prayer 59 
 
 Anonymous 9, 11, 76, 77, 95, 
 167, 169, 179 
 
 Paul at Virgil's tomb . .130 
 
 not) yet'o/xcu ; 128 
 
 B 
 
 Beard, Hibbert- Lecture ... 9 
 
 Bellars "9 
 
 Benson, Archbishop . . 10, 116 
 
 Beveridge, Bishop 17° 
 
 Bhagavadgita . . . . 127, 146 
 
 Brooke, Bishop 15 
 
 Butler, Dr., of Trinity College, 
 
 Cambridge 164 
 
 C 
 
 Carlyle 33 
 
 Cicero xviii 
 
 Claudian xv 
 
 Cleanthes 4 
 
 Clifton Collins (Life of Plato) . 7 
 
 Conybeare 17° 
 
 Cust, R. N. . . . ix, 99, 140, 181 
 
 D 
 
 Dale, Future State 96 
 
 Death 95» io 5 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dhammapada 145 
 
 Dreams, Greek 127 
 
 Driver, Word of God . . . .124 
 
 pity for animals . . . . 17 
 
 Diaspora, the Jew of .... 65 
 Disease and Death as punishments 88 
 
 Divination 68 
 
 Dogmatism xvi 
 
 Doll, illustration of idol ... 32 
 Dost Mahomed at his prayers . 58 
 
 E 
 
 Easter Island, gigantic statues . 35 
 
 Eclipse of the Sun i>8 
 
 Egypt, monuments 7 
 
 Eschatology 95 
 
 Sovereign of 136 
 
 Egyptians, sentiment of . . .174 
 
 Electricity xiii 
 
 Elijah, 19 
 
 Empedocles 29 
 
 Ephod 67 
 
 Epictetus 9 
 
 Established Church xx 
 
 Etruscan divination 83 
 
 Eusebius 7 
 
 F 
 
 Failure of Religion 177 
 
 Family vaults 94 
 
 Fanatic, what is it ? . . . .152 
 
 Fatherhood of God 17 
 
 Fasting Communion .... 69 
 
 Female Infanticide 1 10 
 
 Fergusson, James 41 
 
 Festival, Mahometan .... 162 
 
 Fetichism 19, 43 
 
 Finality of Religious conception, xviii 
 
 Fire-worship 40 
 
 Forbidden articles of food . .168 
 Fulness of Time, which was it ? . 173
 
 ( 193 ) 
 
 Funeral-rites, necessity of. 
 Further off from God . 
 
 G 
 
 PAGE 
 
 • 92 
 . IS 
 
 Galileo 1 
 
 Gayatri of Brahma 41 
 
 Ginsburg on Chemosh .... 18 
 
 Gladstone on Future State . . 104 
 
 — — on Ecce Homo .... xix 
 
 Green 173 
 
 Grote 128 
 
 H 
 
 Harps, Egyptian Inscription . . 146 
 Hatasu, Queen, Inscription . .136 
 
 Hatch 63, 70 
 
 Hebrew at prayer 55 
 
 Herodotus 16 
 
 Higher Criticism 116 
 
 Holy life, Egyptian idea of . . 105 
 
 Homer 16, 27, 93, 103 
 
 Horace .... 23, 31, 86, 88 
 Hungarian Toleration . . 148, 151 
 
 I 
 
 Inscriptions, Egyptian . . . . iS 
 
 Greek, no allusion to a 
 
 Future State 104 
 
 Isaiah 29 
 
 J 
 
 Jeremiah 84 
 
 Johnston, century of Christian 
 
 Progress 150 
 
 Josephus 81 
 
 Julian, last Oracle of Delphi . 83 
 Juvenal xxi, 56 
 
 K 
 
 Keble 51 
 
 Khedive Ismail, funeral of . . 10S 
 
 Khu-en-Atin 147 
 
 Knowledge only recollection : 
 
 Plato 159 
 
 Kong-Fu-Tsee 145 
 
 L 
 
 Latin Poets on God 
 Lavigerie, Inscription . 
 Lefroy of Dehli Mission 
 
 16 
 
 37 
 10 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Legge of China 16, 122 
 
 Libation 49, 53 
 
 Lincoln, President of U.S. . . 27 
 
 Livy 26, 78 
 
 London, Bishop Temple . . .151 
 Loring Brace. .... 141, 142 
 Lucretius 87, '89, 146 
 
 M 
 
 Mahometan apophthegm, »" Son 
 
 of God" 23 
 
 Malachi 12 
 
 Manchester Martyrs .... 66 
 
 Martineau 166 
 
 Maspero 85 
 
 Max Miiller 5, 8 
 
 (Gifford-Lecture) . . .114 
 
 (South Pacific Legends) . 140 
 
 Mekka, Pilgrim traffic .... 45 
 
 Mivart, St. George 38 
 
 Montefiore, Hibbert-Lecture . 86 
 
 More, Eutopia 151 
 
 Mutianus Rufus 9 
 
 N 
 
 Nanak Baba .... 25, 58, 103 
 Newton, spiritual inquiry ... 80 
 Nineveh 35, 7°> io 3 
 
 O 
 
 Om Mani Pani Horn .... 55 
 Orpheus, description of a Prophet 82 
 Ovid '. . . . 90 
 
 P 
 
 Pacific myths 140 
 
 Paul the Apostle, 4, 5, 15,25, 134, 159 
 
 Peter the Apostle 5 
 
 Pilate, Latin anagram .... xvii 
 
 Plato 26, 29, 103, 159 
 
 Plutarch 142 
 
 Plymouth Brethren 85 
 
 Poetry, modern on Death . . 106 
 
 Porphyry 81 
 
 Prayer, act of merchandise . . 53 
 
 of Hindu ..... 53, 55 
 
 of Roman soldier ... 53 
 
 flattery, threats .... 54 
 
 contradictory at same time 54, 55 
 
 denial by the Creator . . 55 
 
 abuse of 56, 57 
 
 malignant 59, 88 
 
 13
 
 ( 194 ) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Parana, Agni 36 
 
 Vishnu 99 
 
 Q 
 
 Quarterly Review 123 
 
 R 
 
 Rabshakeh 114 
 
 Raghuvansa 22 
 
 Rashdall 175 
 
 Renan .... xiv, 21, 122, 1 71 
 
 Renouf, Egyptian idea of God . 18 
 
 Hibbert-Lecture .... 196 
 
 Respecter of persons .... 5 
 
 Robertson Smith . . . xxi, 124 
 
 Ruskin 161 
 
 S 
 
 Sadler, Canon 105 
 
 Samuel, Prophet 96 
 
 Sanday, Professor 135 
 
 Sayce 41, 82, 89 
 
 Self, World, God 19 
 
 Selwyn, Bishop, the elder . .159 
 Selwyn, Bishop, the younger 17, 167 
 Semper, ubique, ab omnibus . 135 
 
 Seneca 79 
 
 Shakespeare 79, 103 
 
 Sheol . 95, 97 
 
 Sin, Jewish idea of 95 
 
 Greek confession of. . . 59 
 
 Socrates, dying words . . . xxi, 49 
 
 Solomon 25 
 
 Spirit, Holy striving with man . 131 
 
 Stanley, Dean 9, 13 
 
 Stephen, dying words of . . . 62 
 
 Strike at Hull 88 
 
 Suetonius 81 
 
 Sun's disk, Khu-en-Atin . . . 147 
 
 T 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tacitus 80 
 
 Tennyson 177 
 
 Tertullian 81 
 
 Thales 29 
 
 Theognis xvi 
 
 Tiberius 150 
 
 Tibullus 85, 93 
 
 Tiele 28, 163 
 
 Trench 10 
 
 U 
 
 Unknown God 141 
 
 V 
 
 Vaughan, Cardinal ... 4, 61, 62 
 
 Veritas, quid est ? xvii 
 
 Virgil 16, 26, 34, 79, 80, 82, 89, 103 
 
 Vishnu Purana 99 
 
 Vision on the Kongo .... 26 
 Visions, definition of .... 83 
 
 W 
 
 Westcott, Bishop, 8, 11, 16, 42, 
 
 62, 121, 160 
 Whateley, Archbishop ... 38 
 Wisdom of Solomon . . . . 31 
 Wiseman, Cardinal . . . 7, 39 
 
 X 
 
 Xenophon 85 
 
 Ximenes, Cardinal 76 
 
 Y 
 
 Zoroastrian, prayers of 
 
 59
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 16, line 23, read ireXueTo for ireKeierv. 
 
 pp. for ph. 
 
 1<J, 
 
 83, 
 
 ,. 29, ,, 
 
 96, 
 
 „ 39, „ 
 
 106, 
 
 » 11, ,, 
 
 120, 
 
 ,, 9, ,, 
 
 140, 
 
 last line, ,, 
 
 ov fiavTiSa for ovfidi/TiSa. 
 
 idiots for idols. 
 
 airo9vfi(TKei vios for aTrodyriOKei yens. 
 
 taintsyfr;- tenets. 
 
 obscure for obscene.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
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