The winter solstice was also the time of the great Scandinavian festival in honor of Frey, son of Odin and Frigga, who was supposed to have been born at this time. The Jews, likewise, have a feast beginning on the 25th of December, which lasts eight days, and is in memory of the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. It is called the feast of Hanuca.

A great annual festival, called the “feast of lamps,” was held by the Egyptians in the early part of the year in honor of the goddess Neith, during which lamps of oil were burned all night before the houses. This festival was renamed Candlemas or the “purification of the virgin,” and was adopted by the Christian church.

The ancient pagan inhabitants of Europe annually celebrated a spring festival which began with a week’s indulgence in all kinds of sports and was called the carne-vale, or taking farewell of meat, because a fast of forty days immediately followed. In Germany this was held in honor of the Saxon goddess Hertha, or Ostara, or Eostre—as you may prefer to call her—whose name was adopted as Easter by the Christians as the name to be applied to the end of their lenten period. Among the Syrians it was the custom to celebrate an elaborate festival at the time of the spring equinox in honor of the glorious Adonis, beloved of the great goddess Astarte. This worship was later introduced into Greece, whence it traveled to Rome with the majority of Grecian mythological theories. It was later introduced into Egypt, where it was annually celebrated at Alexandria, the cradle of Christianity, until the latter part of the fourth century, when a Christian significance was given it.

The myth of Adonis is too well known to need repetition here, and its parallel to that of the Christ is readily seen. The ceremonies now held in Rome at Easter are but slightly different from those held there at the same time of year centuries ago. This similarity was explained away by the assertion of the Christian fathers “that a long time before there were Christians in existence, the devil had taken pleasure to have their future mysteries and ceremonies copied by his worshipers”—a very simple and satisfactory explanation!

That Easter is in reality an astronomical festival in honor of the sun-god seems conclusive from the fact that it occurs on no settled date, but takes place on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the passing of the vernal equinox, which, for convenience, is fixed at March 21.

Among the many Christian fasts of pagan origin none is more familiar to all than the weekly Friday abstinence from meat. Under the old mythology, Friday, the dies veneris, was sacred to Venus, and on that day the devout worshipers of this charming goddess ate nothing but fish, as all the “finny tribe” were sacred to her, and considered proper diet for those that worshiped at her shrine.

When the Bishop of Rome assumed the power and dignity of head of the western church, he also assumed all the prerogatives of the ancient pontifex maximus (who was supposed to be the direct physical communication between the people and the deities), and many of the attributes of the emperors. He adopted the gorgeous vestments of the ancient high priest and even stretched forth a foot to be kissed, as Heliogabalus had done. He considered himself capable of raising such as he saw fit to semi-divine honors by canonization, just as the emperors had raised altars to their favorites, and he claimed precedence over every monarch of the earth, just as they also had done. But the Roman pontiff is not unique in his position of viceroy of the deity. The grand lama of Thibet is considered as the representative of Buddha and has the power of dispensing divine blessings on whomsoever he will. Taoism also has a pope who resides on the Lung-hÛ mountain, in the department of Kwang-hsi, who bears the surname Chang and is called “Heavenly Master.”

The best known rites of the Christian church are probably those of baptism, confession and communion, with which are associated the ideas of purification, prayer and transubstantiation.

The rite of baptism, like all ideas which refer to the purification of sin by water, is a most ancient one. Rivers, as sources of purification, were at an early date invested with a sacred character, and every great river was supposed to be permeated with a divine essence and its waters were believed to cleanse from all mortal guilt and contamination. The Ganges and the Jordan are well known examples of this faith, and vases of Ganges water are to be found in almost every dwelling in India for religious purposes. In Mongolia and Thibet children are named by the priests, who immerse them in holy water while reading a prescribed prayer, after which the name is bestowed. Baptism preceded initiation into the mysteries of both the Egyptian Isis and the Persian Mithras, and was held to be the means of regeneration and of remission of sins.

Tertullian, noticing the great similarity between the Christian and pagan baptisms, naÏvely remarked that the devil “baptizes some, of course, such as believe in him and are faithful to him; he promises expiation of sins from the bath, and, if my memory of Mithras serves me still, in this rite he signs his soldiers on their foreheads.”

Much akin to baptism is the general use by the Christian church of so-called holy water, which is ascribed to Pope Alexander the First, who ruled during the first century. This pontiff probably did little more than officially to condone, by his papal sanction, the very general use of lustral water, which the Romans had inherited from their pagan ancestors; for lustral water was always kept in vases at the entrance of the Roman temples, that those passing in and out might sprinkle themselves with it; and the priests used a sprinkling brush called the aspersorium with which they threw the purifying water over their congregations, in the same manner as modern priests use the hyssop. The druids gave, or sprinkled upon, the worshipers water in which mistletoe had been immersed or steeped.

Similar to the idea of purification by baptism is that of purification by confession and prayer. The idea involved in confession is that the declaration of the crime relieves the conscience of its criminality. In Iceland and among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples in general, murder ceased to be a crime when the slayer had declared himself guilty. Among the Jews confession was practiced, the purpose of its institution being that the priest might judge of the sacrifice required for the expiation of the sin committed, and, also, that every crime might be rehearsed over the scapegoat. The Peruvians confessed their sins to their priests with the exception of the Incas, who confessed to the sun. At the famous Samothracian mysteries a priest was especially charged with hearing the confessions of great criminals and with granting them absolution.

Among Protestant Christians confession is often made directly to the supreme deity in the form of prayer, which, like most other religious practices, is an eminently pagan custom. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and most other ancient peoples offered sacrifices on the altars of their gods to propitiate them, and accompanied these offerings with prayers. Today, instead of presenting wines and viands to his god, the devout Christian offers verbal expressions of a contrite spirit or, more often, asks a favor. He demands, begs, or advises through this method, according to his own nature and disposition.

The expression used in modern orthodox Protestant prayers, “through our Lord, Jesus Christ,” is merely the concrete expression of the idea of mediation. The great supreme God was looked upon by most nations of antiquity as being too great, too sublime, too holy, to be addressed directly; and, in this lofty conception of the deity, they prayed for favors to mediators whom they created to request boons from the real ruler of heaven and earth.

Among the Hindus, supplications were addressed to the various apotheosized incarnations of Vishnu, rather than to the great Brahma; the Greeks made supplication to numerous lesser gods, rather than to Zeus; Persians addressed Mithras instead of Ormuzd; and the modern Romanist kneels to saints and martyrs, or Jesus or his mother, at whose shrines they place offerings which are bribes for favors; but almost never do they immediately supplicate the supreme God. In this they are certainly less blasphemous than their Protestant fellows, who do not hesitate to talk familiarly to God of the most trivial affairs.

Belief in the efficacy of prayer is an absurdity which owes its origin to a hereditary trait of humanity, descended through a long line of superstitious ancestors. Primitive man prayed to his dead fathers for their good will, believing them more powerful in their post mortem state than during life. The ancients offered prayers at the shrines of their various gods and, among all nations, from time immemorial, deities have been supplicated to bestow gifts and avert misfortunes. The overcharged mind of the superstitious has ever found relief in expressing its troubles to the imaginary beings on whom it has bestowed superhuman attributes. All over the world, in all languages, have arisen various petitions to the deities, and still do they continue to arise. Savages pray to their idols, Moslems crouch facing Mecca to pray to Allah, Hindus pray to the avatars of Vishnu, and all Christendom besieges the throne of God in constant supplication.

Can any rational mind believe that these numerous, varied and even antagonistic petitions will be answered? Some are praying for rain, some for a cessation of it, some for health, some for happiness, some for material blessings, and some for spiritual welfare. Vain repetitions! The material universe is governed by immutable laws which all the breath in creation wasted in prayer cannot in any way affect; while such spiritual benefits as morality, character and virtue “are equally dependent on the invariable laws of cause and effect.” Prayers for forgiveness of sins are perhaps the most common, as well as the most absurd, that are daily offered. Sin is the breaking of a material or moral law, and no law can be broken without the transgressor’s incurring the penalty. Is it not absurd of the church to preach the immutable justice of God, and at the same time declare that sinners may escape punishment by prayer?

Communion, or union with the deity, is an idea of great antiquity and has been common to all religions; although the methods practiced are numerous and varied. The more common mode, however, is by the consumption of consecrated foods and drinks, with the idea that these have acquired (by the act of consecration) a divine character of which the communicant becomes a partaker through their reception. The dogma of the eucharist was instituted many centuries before the Christian era and was believed in by the ancient Egyptians (from whom the Christians probably received it through the Alexandrian school), who, at the time of the celebration of the resurrection of Osiris, ate a sacred wafer, which, after consecration by a priest, was declared the flesh of the god. In ancient Greece, bread was worshiped as Ceres and wine as Bacchus; and, when the devout ate the bread and drank the wine, they claimed they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their deities. The ancient Mexicans used bread of corn meal mixed with blood, which, after, having been consecrated by the priests, was given to the people to eat as the flesh of Quetzalcoatl, much to the surprise and horror of the first Spanish missionaries, who ascribed it to mockery of their holy eucharist due to Satan.