s exceedingly widespread celebration (under very various
forms) among the pagans all over the world--as well as among Christians.
I have already said enough on this subject, and need not delay over it.
By partaking of the sacramental meal, even in its wildest and crudest
shapes, as in the mysteries of Dionysus, one was identified with and
united to the god; in its milder and more spiritual aspects as in the
Mithraic, Egyptian, Hindu and Christian cults, one passed behind the
veil of maya and this ever-changing world, and entered into the region
of divine peace and power. (1)

(1) Baring Gould in his Orig. Relig. Belief, I. 401,
says:--"Among the ancient Hindus Soma was a chief deity; he is called
the Giver of Life and Health.... He became incarnate among men, was
taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar (a god of corn and wine
apparently). But he rose in flame to heaven to be 'the Benefactor of the
World' and the 'Mediator between God and Man!' Through communion with
him in his sacrifice, man (who partook of this god) has an assurance of
immortality, for by that sacrament he obtains union with his divinity."

Or again the doctrine of the Saviour. That also is one on which I need
not add much to what has been said already. The number of pagan deities
(mostly virgin-born and done to death in some way or other in their
efforts to save mankind) is so great (1) as to be difficult to keep
account of. The god Krishna in India, the god Indra in Nepaul and
Thibet, spilt their blood for the salvation of men; Buddha said,
according to Max Muller, (2) "Let all the sins that were in the world
fall on me, that the world may be delivered"; the Chinese Tien, the Holy
One--"one with God and existing with him from all eternity"--died to
save the world; the Egyptian Osiris was called Saviour, so was Horus;
so was the Persian Mithras; so was the Greek Hercules who overcame Death
though his body was consumed in the burning garment of mortality, out
of which he rose into heaven. So also was the Phrygian Attis called
Saviour, and the Syrian Tammuz or Adonis likewise--both of whom, as we
have seen, were nailed or tied to a tree, and afterwards rose again
from their biers, or coffins. Prometheus, the greatest and earliest
benefactor of the human race, was NAILED BY THE HANDS and feet, and with
arms extended, to the rocks of Mount Caucasus. Bacchus or Dionysus,
born of the virgin Semele to be the Liberator of mankind (Dionysus
Eleut