of Thibet, and the vast deserts of Siberia. That the barbarians of
central Europe, the Scandinavians, and the Druids of Britain and
Ireland, bent their knee to an idol of a _Triune God_. What then becomes
of "the Ever-Blessed Trinity" of Christianity? It must fall, together
with all the rest of its dogmas, and be buried with the Pagan debris.

The learned Thomas Maurice imagined that this mysterious doctrine must
have been revealed by God to Adam, or to Noah, or to Abraham, or to
somebody else. Notice with what caution he wrote (A. D. 1794) on this
subject. He says:

"In the course of the wide range which I have been compelled
to take in the field of Asiatic mythology, certain topics have
arisen for discussion, _equally delicate and perplexing_.
Among them, in particular, a species of Trinity forms a
constant and prominent feature in nearly all the systems of
Oriental theology."

After saying, "_I venture with a trembling step_," and that, "It was not
from _choice_, but from _necessity_, that I entered thus upon this
subject," he concludes:

"This extensive and interesting subject engrosses a
considerable portion of this work, _and my anxiety to prepare
the public mind to receive it_, my efforts to elucidate so
_mysterious_ a point of theology, induces me to remind the
candid reader, that visible traces of this doctrine are
discovered, not only in the _three_ principals of the Chaldaic
theology; in the _Triplasios_ Mithra of Persia; in the
_Triad_, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, of India--where it was
evidently promulgated in the Geeta, _fifteen hundred years
before the birth of Plato_;[379:1] but in the Numen Triplex of
Japan; in the inscription upon the famous medal found in the
deserts of Siberia, "To the Triune God," to be seen at this
day in the valuable cabinet of the Empress, at St.
Petersburgh; in the Tanga-Tanga, or Three in One, of the South
Americans; and, finally, without mentioning the vestiges of it
in Greece, in the Symbol of the Wing, the Globe, and the
Serpent, conspicuous on most of the ancient temples of Upper
Egypt."[379:2]

It was a long time after the followers of Christ Jesus had made him _a_
God, before they ventured to declare that he was "_God himself in human
form_," and, "_the second person in the Ever-Blessed Trinity_." It was
_Justin Martyr, a Christian convert from the