hat there are hardly any acts of Christ's which may not
be paralleled by acts attributed to mythical gods before His advent;
that there are hardly any important thoughts attributed to Christ which
had not been uttered by other men, or by mythical gods, in earlier
times? What _are_ we to think if the facts be thus?

Mr. Parsons, in _Our Sun God_, quotes the following passage from a Latin
work by St. Augustine:

Again, in that I said, "This is in our time the Christian
religion, which to know and also follow is most sure and
certain salvation," it is affirmed in regard to this name,
not in regard to the sacred thing itself to which the name
belongs. For the sacred thing which is now called the
Christian religion existed in ancient times, nor, indeed,
was it absent from the beginning of the human race until
the Christ Himself came in the flesh, whence the true religion
which already existed came to be called "the Christian." So
when, after His resurrection and ascension to heaven, the
Apostles began to preach and many believed, it is thus written,
"The followers were first called Christians at Antioch."
Therefore I said, "This is in our time the Christian religion,"
not because it did not exist in earlier times, but as having
in later times received this particular name.

From Eusebius, the great Christian historian, Mr. Parsons, quotes as
follows:

What is called the Christian religion is neither new nor
strange, but--_if it be lawful to testify as to the truth_--
was known to the ancients.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in _Buddha and Buddhism_, quotes M. Burnouf as
saying:

History and comparative mythology are teaching every day
more plainly that creeds grow slowly up. None came into the
world ready-made, and as if by magic. The origin of events
is lost in the infinite. A great Indian poet has said: "The
beginning of things evades us; their end evades us also; we
see only the middle."

Before Darwin's day it was considered absurd and impious to talk of
"pre-Adamite man," and it will still, by many, be held absurd and
impious to talk of "Christianity before Christ."

And yet the incidents of the life and death of Christ, the teachings of
Christ and His Apostles, and the rites and mysteries of the Christian
Church can all be paralleled by similar incidents, ethics, and
ceremonies embodied in relig