manner in which it has been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme.  This uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates the general acquiescence of the human mind in the necessity of some mediation between the pure spiritual nature of the Deity and the moral and intellectual nature of man” (as quoted by Lake).  And “this uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates,” also, that Christianity has only received and repeated the religious ideas which existed in earlier times.  How can that be a revelation from God which was well known in the world long before God revealed it?  The acknowledgment of the priority of Pagan thought is the destruction of the supernatural claims of Christianity based on the same thought; that cannot be supernatural after Christ which was natural before him, nor that sent down from heaven which was already on earth as the product of human reason.  The Rev. Mr. Lake fairly says:  “We have evidence—­clear, conclusive, irrefutable evidence—­as to what this doctrine really is.  We can trace its birth-place in the philosophic speculations of the ancient world, we can note its gradual development and growth, we can see it in its early youth passing (through Philo and others) from Grecian philosophy into the current of Jewish thought; then, after resting awhile in the Judaism of the period of the Christian era, we see it slightly changing its character, as it passes through Gamaliel, Paul—­the writers of the Fourth Gospel and of the Epistle to the Hebrews—­through Justin Martyr and Tertullian, into the stream of early Christian thought, and now from a sublime philosophical speculation it becomes dwarfed and corrupted into a church dogma, and finally gets hardened as a frozen mass of absurdity, stupidity, and blasphemy, in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds” ("Philo, Plato, and Paul,” pp. 71, 72).

The idea of IMMORTALITY was by no means “brought to light” by Christ, as is pretended.  The early Jews had clearly no idea of life after death; “for in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps. vi. 5).  “Like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more....  Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead?  Shall the dead arise and praise thee?  Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?  Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” (Ps. lxxxviii. 5, 10-12).  “The dead praise not the Lord” (Ps. cxv. 17).  “I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them:  as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast” (Eccles. iii. 18, 19).  “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,