[Footnote 125: Fiske: _The Destiny of Man_, pp. 78-80.]
[Footnote 126: We do not care to enter the field of pre-historic
speculation where the evolution of religion from totemism or fetishism
claims to find its chief support. We are considering only the
traditional development of the ancient faiths of man.]
[Footnote 127: _Introduction to Christian Theology_, Appendix, pp. 166,
167.]
[Footnote 128: Ebrard's _Apologetics_, vols. ii. and iii.]
[Footnote 129: _Modern Atheism_, p. 13.]
[Footnote 130: _The Chinese_, pp. 163, 164.]
[Footnote 131: _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. i., p. 23.]
[Footnote 132: Professor Banergea (see _Indian Antiquary_, February,
1875) thinks that this Hindu account of creation shows traces of the
common revelation made to mankind.]
[Footnote 133: _Science of Religion_, p. 99.]
[Footnote 134: _Science of Religion_, p. 88.]
[Footnote 135: "The ancient relics of African faith are rapidly
disappearing at the approach of Mohammedan and Christian missionaries;
but what has been preserved of it, chiefly through the exertions of
learned missionaries, is full of interest to the student of religion,
with its strange worship of snakes and ancestors, its vague hope of a
future life, and its not altogether faded reminiscence of a Supreme God,
the Father of the black as well as of the white man."--_Science of
Religion_, p. 39.]
[Footnote 136: While he maintains that the idea of God must have
preceded that of _gods_, as the plural always implies the singular, he
yet claims very justly that the exclusive conception of monotheism as
against polytheism could hardly have existed. Men simply thought of God
as God, as a child thinks of its father, and does not even raise the
question of a second.--See _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. i., p.
349.]
[Footnote 137: St. Augustine, in quoting Cyprian, shows that the fathers
of the Church looked upon Plato as a monotheist. The passage is as
follows: "For when he (Cyprian) speaks of the Magians, he says that the
chief among them, Hostanes, maintains that the true God is invisible,
and that true angels sit at His throne; and that Plato agrees with this
and believes in one God, considering the others to be demons; and that
Hermes Trismegistus also speaks of one God, and confesses that He is
incomprehensible." Angus., _De Baptismo contra Donat_., Lib. VI., Cap.
XLIV.]
[Footnote 138: _The Aryan Witness_, passim.]
[Footnote 139: Aristotle said, "God, though He is one, has many names,
because He is called according to the states into which He always enters
anew."]
[Footnote 140: _The Religions of China_, p. 16.]
[Footnote 141: _The Religions of China_, p. 49.]
[Footnote 142: "In the year 1600 the Emperor of China declared in an
edict that the Chinese should adore, not the material heavens, but the
_Master_ of heaven."--Cardinal Gibbons: _Our Christian Heritage_.]
[Footnote 143: Martin: _The Chinese_, p. 106.]
[Footnote 144: It has been related by Rev. Hudson Taylor that the
fishermen of the Fukien Province, when a storm arises, pray to the
goddess of the sea; but when that does not avail they throw all the
idols aside and pray to the "Great-grandfather in Heaven." Father is a
great conception to the Chinese mind. Great-grandfather is higher still,
and stands to them for the Supreme.]
[Footnote 145: _Science of Religion_, p. 86.]
[Footnote 146: _The Chinese_, p. 99.]
[Footnote 147: Other writers contend that he was probably
contemporaneous with Abraham. Still others think Zoroaster a general
name for great prophets. Darmestetter inclines to this view.]
[Footnote 148: _Chips from a German Workshop._]
[Footnote 149: Archbishop Vaughn, of Sydney, emphatically declares that
the aborigines of Australia believe in a Supreme Being.]
[Footnote 150: Rev. Mr. Johnson, of Lagos, has expressed a belief that
the pagan tribes of West Africa were monotheists before the incursion of
the Mohammedans. Rev. Alfred Marling, of Gaboon, bears the same
testimony of the Fans.]
[Footnote 151: Rev. A.C. Thompson, D.D. _The Moravians_.
One of the early converts from among the Ojibwas, said to the
missionary, Rev. S.G. Wright: "A great deal of your preaching I readily
understand, especially what you say about our real characters. We
Indians all know that it is wrong to lie, to steal, to be dishonest, to
slander, to be covetous, and we always know that the Great Spirit hates
all these things. All this we knew before we ever saw the white man. I
knew these things when I was a little boy. We did not, however, know the
way of pardon for these sins. In our religion there is nothing said by
the wise men about pardon. We knew nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ as a
Saviour."]
[Footnote 152: Professor Tiele, of Leyden, asserts that "It is
altogether erroneous to regard the Egyptian religion as the polytheistic
degeneration of a prehistoric monotheism. It was polytheistic from the
beginning." But on one of the oldest of Egyptian monuments is found this
hymn, which is quoted by Cardinal Gibbons in _Our Christian
Inheritance_:
"Hail to thee, say all creatures; ...
The gods adore thy majesty,
The spirits thou has made exalt thee,
Rejoicing before the feet of their begetter.
They cry out welcome to thee,
Father of the fathers of all the gods,
Who raises the heavens, who fixes the earth;
We worship thy spirit who alone hast made us,
We whom thou hast made thank thee that thou hast given us birth,
We give to thee praises for thy mercy toward us."]
[Footnote 153: _Modern Atheism_, p. 13.]
[Footnote 154: _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. ii., pp. 146, 147.]
[Footnote 155: _Science of Religion_, Lecture III., p. 57.]
[Footnote 156: Acts xvii. 28.]
[Footnote 157: Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_.]
[Footnote 158: Réville in his _Hibbert Lectures_ on Mexican and Peruvian
religions asserts that polytheism existed from the beginning, but our
contention is that One God was supreme and created the sun.]
[Footnote 159: De Pressensé: _The Ancient World and Christianity_.]
[Footnote 160: Bournouf found the Tantras so obscene that he refused to
translate them.]
[Footnote 161: T. Rhys Davids: _Buddhism_, p. 208.]
[Footnote 162: _Report of Missionary Conference_, vol. i, p. 70.]
[Footnote 163: Buddhism, in the _Britannica_.]
[Footnote 164: Rev. S.G. Wright, long a missionary among the American
Indians, says: "During the forty-six years in which I have been laboring
among the Ojibway Indians, I have been more and more impressed with the
evidence, showing itself in their language, that at some former time
they have been in possession of much higher ideas of God's attributes,
and of what constitutes true happiness, immortality, and virtue, as well
as of the nature of the Devil and his influence in the world, than those
which they now possess. The thing which early in our experience
surprised us, and which has not ceased to impress us, is, that, with
their present low conceptions of spiritual things, they could have
chosen so lofty and spiritual a word for the Deity. The only
satisfactory explanation seems to be that, at an early period of their
history, they had higher and more correct ideas concerning God than
those which they now possess, and that these have become, as the
geologists would say, _fossilized_ in their forms of speech, and so
preserved."--_Bibliotheca Sacra_, October, 1889.]
[Footnote 165: _Modern Atheism_, p. 10.]
[Footnote 166: I. Kings, xiv., and II. Kings, xxiii.]