of the
great _festivals_ and _mysteries_ of Phenicians, Jews,
Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hindus."[496:3]

All this was _Sun_ and Nature worship, symbolized by the _Linga_ and
_Yoni_. As Mr. Bonwick says:

"The philosophic theist who reflects upon the story, known
from the walls of China, across Asia and Europe, to the
plateau of Mexico, cannot resist the impression that no
_materialistic_ theory of it can be satisfactory."[496:4]

_Allegory_ alone explains it.

"The Church, at an early date, selected the heathen festivals
of _Sun worship_ for its own, ordering the _birth at
Christmas_, a fixed time, and the _resurrection at Easter_, a
varying time, as in all Pagan religions; since, though the Sun
rose directly after the vernal equinox, the festival, to be
correct in a _heathen_ point of view, had to be associated
with the new moon."[496:5]

The Christian, then, may well say:

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst
open the kingdom of heaven (_i. e._, bring on the reign of
summer), to all believers."

13. _Christ Jesus is Creator of all things._ We have seen (in Chapter
XXVI.) that it was not God the Father, who was supposed by the ancients
to have been the _Creator_ of the world, but God the Son, the Redeemer
and Saviour of Mankind. Now, this Redeemer and Saviour was, as we have
seen, the Sun, and Prof. Max Mueller tells us that in the _Vedic_
mythology, the Sun is not the bright Deva only, "who performs his daily
task in the sky, but he is supposed to perform much greater work. He is
looked upon, in fact, as the _Ruler_, as the _Establisher_, as the
_Creator of the world_."[496:6]

Having been invoked as the "Life-bringer," the Sun is also called--in
the Rig-Veda--"the Breath or Life of all that move and rest;" and lastly
he becomes "_The Maker of all things_," by whom all the worlds have been
brought together.[497:1]

There is a prayer in the _Vedas_, called _Gayatree_, which consists of
three measured lines, and is considered the holiest and most efficacious
of all their religious forms. Sir William Jones translates it thus:

"Let us adore the supremacy of that spiritual Sun, the
godhead, who illuminates all, who re-creates all, from whom
all proceed, to whom all must return; whom we invoke to direct
our undertakings aright in our progress toward his holy seat."

With Seneca (a Roma