ntemp. Science Series), p.
330.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Muller's Dorians Book II, ch. ii, par. 10.

With the lapse of time and the general progress of mankind, we may,
I think, perceive some such slow ameliorations in the matter of the
brutality and superstition of the old religions. How far any later
ameliorations were due to the direct influence of Christianity might
be a difficult question; but what I think we can clearly see--and what
especially interests us here--is that in respect to its main religious
ideas, and the matter underlying them (exclusive of the MANNER of
their treatment, which necessarily has varied among different peoples)
Christianity is of one piece with the earlier pagan creeds and is
for the most part a re-statement and renewed expression of world-wide
doctrines whose first genesis is lost in the haze of the past, beyond
all recorded history.

I have illustrated this view with regard to the doctrine of Sin and
Sacrifice. Let us take two or three other illustrations. Let us take the
doctrine of Re-birth or Regeneration. The first few verses of St. John's
Gospel are occupied with the subject of salvation through rebirth or
regeneration. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God."... "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God." Our Baptismal Service begins by saying that
"forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that our
Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God except he
be regenerate and born anew of water and the Holy Ghost"; therefore it
is desirable that this child should be baptized, "received into Christ's
Holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same." That, is to say,
there is one birth, after the flesh, but a second birth is necessary, a
birth after the Spirit and into the Church of Christ. Our Confirmation
Service is simply a service repeating and confirming these views, at
an age (fourteen to sixteen or so) when the boy or girl is capable of
understanding what is being done.

But our Baptismal and Confirmation ceremonies combined are clearly
the exact correspondence and parallel of the old pagan ceremonies of
Initiation, which are or have been observed in almost every primitive
tribe over the world. "The rite of the second birth," says Jane
Harrison, (1) "is widespread, universal, over half the savage world.
With the savage to be twice-born is the rule. By his first birth he
comes