IX.--THE PHOENICIAN AND HEBREW GOD SET OR SETH
X.--ANCIENT SPECULATIONS CONCERNING CREATION
XI.--FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP
XII.--AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE SENSUALIZED FAITHS
XIII.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM
XIV.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM --(Continued)
XV.--CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND
XVI.--STONES OR COLUMNS AS THE DEITY
XVII.--SACRIFICES
XVIII.--THE CROSS AND A DYING SAVIOR
THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Through a study of the primitive god-idea as manifested in
monumental records in various parts of the world; through
scientific investigation into the early religious conceptions of
mankind as expressed by symbols which appear in the architecture
and decorations of sacred edifices and shrines; by means of a
careful examination of ancient holy objects and places still
extant in every quarter of the globe, and through the study of
antique art, it is not unlikely that a line of investigation has
been marked out whereby a tolerably correct knowledge of the
processes involved in our present religious systems may be
obtained. The numberless figures and sacred emblems which appear
carved in imperishable stone in the earliest cave temples; the
huge towers, monoliths, and rocking stones found in nearly every
country of the globe, and which are known to be closely connected
with primitive belief and worship, and the records found on
tablets which are being unearthed in various parts of the world,
are, with the unravelling of extinct tongues, proving an almost
inexhaustible source for obtaining information bearing upon the
early history of the human race, and, together, furnish
indisputable evidence of the origin, development, and unity of
religious faiths.
By comparing the languages used by the earlier races to express
their religious conceptions; by observing the similarity in the
mythoses and sacred appellations among all tribe and nations, an
through the discovery of the fact that the legends extant in the
various countries of the globe are identical, or have the same
foundation, it is probable that a clue has already been obtained
whereby an outline of the religious history of the human family
from a period even as remote as the "first dispersion," or from a
time when one race comprehended the entire population of the
globe, maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches observes: "In
every part of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras as well
as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the Aegean Sea, fragments of
