The Penn's Grove record., 1909-04-09

nan, not by the sacrifice OF His death

man. not by the sacrifice of His death
upon the cross, because, matter being
evil, Christ had no body. That was
only an appearance. There was no
incarnation, no resurrection, or any
OF the rest of it. He saves man, not
by the death OF the cross, but by
illumination, by the shining in Of
His Spirit upon the spirit of man.
The third antagonist of the faith
was Competition. There came into
existence two great new religions, on
the one side the religion of Plato Ca
revival of philosophy; and on the
other side the religion of Mithras Cd
revival of Paganismj. These came
In the way of a revolt from the pro-
sale religion of the Roman Empire;
It had in it no emotion: It was d
bare contract between man and God;
wherein man said; up and down, IT
will give You a certain amount of
ritual IL you will give me d cores
ponding amount of protection" 1t
had in 1t no sense of mystery. 1t
was just as commonplace as the NOR
atty. Now, the world was longing
for some appeal to emotion, for some
satisfaction of its sense CT mystery,
and these two religious came at the
place to do that. worn. Neoplaton.
ism; a revival of philosophy, found
Its exponent in Plotinus. From frag-
ments of books he wrote we get some
idea how he tried to bind together
all the truth there was into one sys-
tom, except the truth of Christianity.
And then opposed to Neoplatonism
was an ideal, an Ideal and not a per-
son: Mlthraism was the most for-
midab1e Competitor that Christianity
ever had. 1t seemed at one. time as
If it were likely to become the relig-
ion of Europe. 1t entered very little
Into literature, and scarcely anything
was known about 1t u1til men began
to study the ruins of Mithraic shrines
and read the Inscriptions and gradu-
ally to find how far spread it was and
what 1t meant. It came from Persia
and its supreme god was Mithras;
who was the representative Of the in;
visable and eternal deity behind ard
the mediator between Him and us.
He was supernaturally born. and His
first appearance was to shepherds.
He fought with a wild boar that was
ravaging the country which He killed
whose blood became a vine and whose
marrow sown In the earth became the
wheat. After His victorious battle
He dined with the sun. He was to
Come again in a second advent and
hold a general judgment of all maj
kind In which the good went one way
and the bad another-into heaven OF
hell. They had a baptism of blood
and water for newness IT life followed
by a sealing an amounting of coairm-
alton, and after that a holy comrun-
ion of bread and wine. They had
sarctuaries in which liturgies were
ehanted by vested priests miEistering
at affairs adorned with lights.
This day on which we meet is
called Sunday because of Mlthras.
When Constantine gave out his edict
in the days when the empire became
Christian he decreed that the first
day Of the week should be kept as a
day of rest and they called it by its
Mithraistic Eame, the venerable day
Of the sun. Why Is Christmas kent
on the twenty-fifth of December? Nc.
body knows when our Lord was born.
Even tie season of the year has to-
tally departed from the memory OF
man. The only indications Of the
time of year point to the summer
when the shepherds were abiding in
the fields. Christmas is kept On the
t~wenty-ffth of December because it
was Mithras' birthday.
That was Mithras' birthday kept as
a day Of reioi ing among the yotaries
of this religion scattered all over from
the. desert of Sahara to the glens Of
Scotla1d, where shrines 3f Mithra
have been found. When Christianity
became victorious over this religion
she found it wise to say to the cvn-
verts, Keep en- with your domestic
rejoicing ON December Is, but dc all
these joyful things in remembrance
of Jesus Christ, our Saviour" The
essential defect. however, in this re-
ligion of Mithra was that there was
no Mithra; he was only a Min. Nos
ticism was founded on an icea; not
a person. Mithraism was founded on
allegory. not a person. But the hui
man soul cries out for some nantes
tation of God in the form of actual,
historic personality.
There were the four men who de-
Tended the faith pr~e-eminently in the
second and fourth centuries: Jlst.n,
the apologist. Irenaeus. the tneolo-
gian; Clement, the Instructor. and
Origen, the commentator. These
were the men who defended the faith
against the three agnosties-preju-
dice, heresy and competition.
s-a