flights of the “prophets” of the Jewish Scriptures may be paralleled by those of the sages of other creeds.  Zoroaster taught that “God is the first, indestructible, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, dissimilar” ("Ancient Fragments,” Cory, p. 239, quoted by Inman).  In the Sabaean Litany (two extracts only of this ancient work are preserved by El Wardi, the great Arabic historian) we read:  “Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is centred....  Thou dost embrace all things.  Thou art the Infinite and Incomprehensible, who standest alone” ("Sacred Anthology,” by M.D.  Conway, pp. 74, 75).  “There is only one Deity, the great soul.  He is called the Sun, for he is the soul of all beings.  That which is One, the wise call it in divers manners.  Wise poets, by words, make the beautiful-winged manifold, though he is One” ("Rig-Veda,” B.C. 1500, from “Anthology,” p.76).  “The Divine Mind alone is the whole assemblage of the gods....  He (the Brahmin) may contemplate castle, air, fire, water, the subtile ether, in his own body and organs; in his heart, the Star; in his motion, Vishnu; in his vigour, Hara; in his speech, Agni; in digestion, Mitra; in production, Brahma; but he must consider the supreme Omnipresent Reason as sovereign of them all” ("Manu,” about B.C. 1200; his code collected about B.C. 300; from “Anthology,” p. 81).  On an ancient stone at Bonddha Gaya is a Sanscrit inscription to Buddha, in which we find:  “Reverence be unto thee, an incarnation of the Deity and the Eternal One.  OM! [the mysterious name of God, equivalent to pure existence, or the Jewish Jhvh] the possessor of all things in vital form!  Thou art Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Mahesa!...  I adore thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms” ("Asiatic Researches,” Essay xi., by Mr. Wilmot; vol. i., p. 285).  Plato’s teaching is, “that there is but one God” (ante, p. 364), and wherever we search, we find that the more thoughtful proclaimed the unity of the Deity.  This doctrine must, then, go the way of the rest, and it must be acknowledged that the boasted revelation is, once more, but the speculation of man’s unassisted reason.

Turning from these cardinal doctrines to the minor dogmas and ceremonies of Christianity, we shall still discover it to be nothing but a survival of Paganism.

BAPTISM seems to have been practised as a religious rite in all solar creeds, and has naturally, therefore, found its due place in the latest solar faith.  “The idea of using water as emblematic of spiritual washing, is too obvious to allow surprise at the antiquity of this rite.  Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the ‘Religion of the Ancient Persians,’ xxxiv. 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people.  ’They do not use circumcision for their children, but only baptism or washing for the inward purification of the soul.  They bring the child to the priest into the church, and place him in front of the sun and fire, which ceremony being completed, they look