sis."[337:10]

And Mr. Bonwick says:

"We may be surprised that, as Europe has _Black_ Madonnas,
Egypt had _Black_ images and pictures of Isis. At the same
time it is a little odd that the Virgin Mary copies most
honored should not only be _Black_, but have a decided _Isis
cast_ of feature."[338:1]

The shrine now known as that of the "Virgin in Amadon," in France, was
formerly an old Black _Venus_.[338:2]

"To this we may add," (says Dr. Inman), "that at the Abbey of
Einsiedelen, on Lake Zurich, the object of adoration is an old
_black doll_, dressed in gold brocade, and glittering with
jewels. She is called, apparently, the Virgin of the Swiss
Mountains. My friend, Mr. Newton, also tells me that he saw,
over a church door at Ivrea, in Italy, twenty-nine miles from
Turin, the fresco of a _Black_ Virgin and child, the former
bearing a _triple crown_."[338:3]

This _triple crown_ is to be seen on the heads of Pagan gods and
goddesses, especially those of the Hindoos.

Dr. Barlow says:

"The doctrine of the Mother of God was of Egyptian origin. It
was brought in along with the worship of the Madonna by Cyril
(Bishop of Alexandria, and the Cyril of Hypatia) and the monks
of Alexandria, in the fifth century. The earliest
representations of the Madonna have quite a Greco-Egyptian
character, and there can be little doubt that Isis nursing
Horus was the origin of them all."[338:4]

And Arthur Murphy tells us that:

"The superstition and religious ceremonies of the _Egyptians_
were diffused over Asia, Greece, _and the rest of Europe_.
Brotier says, that inscriptions of Isis and Serapis (Horus?)
have been frequently found in _Germany_. . . . The missionaries
who went in the eighth and ninth centuries to propagate the
Christian religion in those parts, _saw many images and
statues of these gods_."[338:5]

These "many images and statues of these gods" were evidently baptized
anew, given other names, and allowed to remain where they were.

In many parts of Italy are to be seen pictures of the Virgin with her
infant in her arms, inscribed with the words: "Deo Soli." This betrays
their Pagan origin.

FOOTNOTES:

[326:1] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 115, and Monumental
Christianity, pp. 206 and 226.

[326:2] Inman: Ancient Faiths, vol. i. p. 159.

[326:3] See Williams' Hind