to those of Osirianism; nay, as to the possibility of the whole
doctrinal system of modern orthodoxy being but a transformation of the
Osiris-myth?" ("Christ and Osiris," pp. 13, 14).

Thus we find that the cardinal doctrines and the ceremonies of
Christianity are of purely Pagan origin, and that "Christianity" was in
existence long ages before Christ. Christianity is only, as we have
said, a patchwork composed of old materials; from the later Jews comes
the Unity of God; from India and Egypt the Trinity in Unity; from India
and Egypt the crucified Redeemer; from India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
the virgin mother and the divine son; from Egypt its priests and its
ritual; from the Essenes and the Therapeuts its ascetism; from Persia,
India, and Egypt, its Sacraments; from Persia and Babylonia its angels
and its devils; from Alexandria the blending into one of many lines of
thought. There is nothing original in this creed, save its special
appeal to the ignorant and to babes; "not many wise men after the flesh"
are found among its adherents; it is an appeal to the darkness of the
world, not to its light: to superstition, not to knowledge; to faith,
not to reason. As its root is, so also are its fruits, and when--after
glancing at its morality--we turn to its history, we shall see that the
corrupt tree bears corrupt fruit, and that from the evil stem of a
thinly disguised Paganism spring forth the death-bringing branches of
the Upas-tree Christianity, stunting the growth of the young
civilisation of the West, and drugging, with its poisonous
dew-droppings, the Europe which lay beneath its shade, swoon-slumbering
in the death stupor of the Ages of Darkness and of Faith.

* * * * *

INDEX TO SECTION II. OF PART II.