The dogma of the Trinity is Platonic and Egyptian." (Rev. Jas. Freeman Clarke.)

"We can trace the history of this doctrine (of the Trinity) and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in the Platonic philosophy." (Rev. Andrews Norton.)

"Traces of belief in the Trinity are to be found in most heathen nations. It is discernible in Persian, Egyptian, Roman, Japanese and most of the ancient Grecian mythologies and is very marked in Hindooism." (Rev. Lyman Abbott.)

The Trinities of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva; of Osiris, Isis and Horus; of Odin, Vili and Ve, were believed in centuries before the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost was promulgated.

Similitudes, in other respects, between the more ancient. religions and Christianity are, likewise, simple matters of history.

The story of creation, of the temptation of Adam and Eve, of the flood, of the tower of Babel, were told long before a line of the Bible was written (see Outlook-July, 1890-by Rev. Dr. Lewis.)

"The Greeks, Romans and Hindoos used the same words as those which commence (what is called) the Lord's prayer' and which is found in almost identical language in the Jewish Kadish." (Judge R. B. Westbrook, of Phila.)

"There exists not a people, whether Greek, barbarian, or any other race, among whom prayers are not offered up in the name of a crucified Saviour." (A Church Father.)

The origin of the Christian gospels and doctrines are shown to be from Egyptian and other Oriental sources, in Diegesis by Rev. Robert Taylor.

What the Christian conceives to be God is similar to the Hindoo conception of Brahma, the Greek conception of Zeus or the Roman conception of Jupiter.

"A local heaven and a local hell are found in every mythology." (Prof. John W. Draper.)

"The essence of the Christian religion is the center dogma of Buddhism." (Schopenhauer.)

In every phase of this question we discover that the Christian religion is, indeed, almost an exact copy of earlier religions and mythologies.

Peter Eckler, in his notes on Gibbon's Christianity, says: The similarity between the Pagan and Hebrew belief is apparent. . . . The miracles performed by Jews and Egyptians were precisely the same. . . The Roman Hercules was called a Saviour of mankind, born of a human mother and an immortal father. The same was also claimed for the Indian Chrishna, the Egyptian Osiris and the Grecian Apollo."

The marvelous stories connected with the lives and times of Joshua, Balaam and Moses are evident derivations from the myths of more ancient times.

A. L. Rawson, in the Freethinker's Magazine for March, 1888, says: "We read in the Iliad, of Juno hastening the sunset and of making a horse speak, and of Jupiter turning a serpent into stone. In the Odyssey, of Minerva retarding the sunrise and as transforming Odysseus. Calisthenes (quoted by Josephus) wrote that in the Pamphylian sea a passage for Alexander the Great's army was opened, the waters rising and doing homage to him as a king."

The late D. M. Bennett said, that "the Christian religion is made up from religious systems which existed many centuries prior to it. In every essential particular it is mere plagiarism ; a reconstruction of the dogmas and superstitions of older heathen nations."

The Truth Seeker says that Mr. Bennett traced forty events, traditions, ceremonies and dogmas, now regarded as Christian, to pre-existing religions.

Thus it would seem that the Christian religion has become heir to all the myths, mysteries, mythologies, dogmas, doctrines, legends, fables, traditions, superstitions, miracles, rites, ceremonies, sacraments and symbols of the older religions. Even the moral precepts of Christ were the utterances of Buddha, of Confucius and other religious teachers, centuries before the Christian era. As A. C. Bowen, in the North American Review for March, 1887, says: "Much of the

ethical greatness and sweetness which we, in our bigotry, thought to belong to Christianity alone, has lived for centuries in the religions of the East."

Renan says: "Nearly everything in Christianity is mere baggage brought from the Pagan mysteries.'

Col. Ingersoll says of Christianity, that it "administered on the estate of Paganism and appropriated most of the property to its own use." Again he says: "The grave clothes of Paganism became the swaddling wraps of Christianity."

I

WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.

HAVE been asked the question: "Would the world be better off with or without Christianity." My answer was "without," and was made advisedly; after bestowing a great deal of thought upon, and many years of study of, the subject. It is but historical truth that Christianity has discouraged learning, antagonized science and retarded civilization; that it has instigated fear, incited persecution and encouraged war; that it has stirred up jealousy, enmity and strife; that it has been the prop of thrones, the friend of despotism, the enemy of liberty; that it substitutes faith for reason, legend for fact, tradition for history, fable for truth; that it would punish honest thought with never ending torture, and reward dishonest belief with eternal bliss; that it has shown itself to be ignorant, credulous, superstitious, bigoted, arrogant, irrational, unjust, tyrannical, pharisaical, cruel and immoral; that it falsely assumes to possess the only true system by which uprightness of character and moral conduct are inculcated and attained; and that it erroneously claims to have established the only institutions of a beneficent character that have existed.

I propose to call as witnesses, in proof of what I say, those whose character, ability and truthfulness cannot be gainsaid. There is no doubt of the fact that from the fourth century— when Christianity first became a power in the world, under the leadership of one of the most blood-thirsty monarchs who ever ruled in Rome, the great Christian Emperor Constantinedown to the fourteenth century, a period of a thousand years, known as the dark and the middle ages; the light of intelligence became almost extinct.

It is but historical truth that this "light of intelligence" was not revived except under the auspices of a rival religion. Let Lecky be my first witness. He says: "Not till Mohammedan science and classical free thought and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the (Christian) Church did the intellectual revival of Europe begin. . . . Decadence of theological influence has been one of the most invariable signs and measures of our progress. . The Church

has uniformly betrayed and trampled on the liberties of the people. She has invariably cast her lot into the scale of tyranny."

Rev. James Freeman Clarke speaks of "that prodigious development of art, science and literature which followed the conquests of the Saracens."

In Rees. Cyclopedia we read: "It was in a great measure owing to the light of learning and science which shone in Arabia that the whole earth was not at this time (about the year 1,000) overwhelmed with intellectual darkness."

Canon Isaac Taylor said recently that "Islamism has done more for civilization than Christianity has done or can do."

Buckle says: "In the sixth century the Christians succeeded in cutting off the last ray of knowledge and shutting up the schools of Greece. Then followed a long period of theology, ignorance and vice. . . . To assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths, previously unknown, argues gross ignorance or willful fraud.”

Prof. Draper says: "The history of science is the narrative. of two contending powers; the expansive force of the human intellect on the one side and the compression arising from traditionary faith on the other. .. In 1,200 years when Christianity dominated the civilized world, the Church had not made a single discovery that advanced the cause of humanity or ameliorated the condition of mankind."

Guizot says: "When any step was taken to establish a system of permanent institutions which might effectually protect liberty from the invasions of power in general, the Church always ranged herself on the side of despotism."