FOOTNOTES:
[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.]