HOW IT MAY BE ACCOMPLISHED.
By Editor
THE Interior has in its November supplement some extracts from what purport to be the Scriptures of the most ancient Egyptians, and in commenting on them it takes occasion to eulogize to some extent the Egyptian sun-god, Osiris, contrasting him with Baal and Dagon, the Asiatic conceptions of Deity. It then says:— “The Christian would have no difficulty in worshiping Osiris. Osiris was God. Osiris was to God what the sun shining through a murky haze is to the sun rising in unclouded splendor. His outlines and attributes, and his attitude toward man as Creator, Father, Saviour, and righteous Judge, are all there, and not so very dimly, either. The obscuring veil between Ptah-hotep and God was a good deal more transparent than that which hangs before the devotee in every Roman Catholic fane. Abraham came out of Ur into a theological sunrise. God unveiled himself, and Abraham became the apostle of the monotheistic reformation, which restored the primitive church. If we are going to allow Romanism to stand in our view as a Christian church, despite its corruptions, we will find it hard to exclude Ptah-hotep and his fellow-worshipers of Osiris. There is a shorter drop between the Jehovah of the first of Genesis and the Osiris of Egypt than there is between the Christ of the gospels and the Christ of the Vatican. If we count as Christian the worshipers of Mary, and admit that they have enough of truth to save them, we shall certainly find no difficulty in including among the elect the followers of Ptah-hotep and Zoroaster, and other sages of the ancient world who worshiped God.” It then goes on, consistently with the above, to deny that Abraham was “the sole and solitary member of the church living on earth during his time,” and claims that from all the heathen nations there was “a mighty flood pouring into the golden city.” The Interior’s position is consistent. If the Catholic Church be a Christian church, then it is certain that the worshipers of Osiris and of Apollo cannot be barred from the list. But when that is granted, it must also be claimed that it was unnecessary for the Lord to bring Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and a mistake to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, in order that they might serve him. Straws show which way the wind blows; and the indications are that the long-dreamed-of temporal millennium, when all the world shall be converted, will be brought about by the acknowledgment of not only Catholics, but Mohammedans, Buddhists, and the most enlightened heathen nations as Christians. If the Catholic Church is to be acknowledged as Christian there is no reason why the heathen religion should not be called Christian also.