162 MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS RITES. 
2. CHRISTIANITY. 
Curist1anity, while it rested in a considerable measure upon the faith 
and morals revealed in the old Testament, was justly described by one of 
its earliest preachers as a nobler branch grafted upon a wild tree. The God 
of Christianity is not the strong and jealous God that governs and punishes 
without mercy; but a tender Father who commiserates the sinner, and 
seeks by kindness and mercy to win him to holiness and salvation. _ His 
children, accordingly, are not selected exclusively from any one tribe; “ but 
in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted 
of Him.” Every one, however humble, receives his notice and protection, 
and nothing can befall him without the will of his heavenly Father, who 
can compel all events, whether prosperous or adverse, to work out for his 
good. While all men are thus God’s children, they are expected to love 
each other as such; and the blessed Founder of Christianity has promised 
to recognise as his followers only ‘‘ such as love one another.” 
Professed Christians have often sadly departed from this standard of 
discipleship. They have hated, persecuted, and murdered their brethren 
for opinion’s sake ; and in the course of time so many parties have arisen in 
the church, that were it not for the positive promise of God one might well 
despair of ever beholding that desirable object, ‘“‘ One fold and one Shep- 
herd.” Every denomination seems to suppose that it alone possesses the 
true faith and has found the way of salvation, forgetting all the while that 
“* Jove is the fulfilling of the law,” and is thus superior to faith and all other 
qualifications. 
The oldest of these divisions is known as the Loman Catholic Church. 
At the head of its organization it recognises the Pope as God’s representa- 
tive; besides God and Christ it venerates the Saints ; professes to hold the 
all-saving faith ; condemns all who maintain a different belief; withholds from 
the laity the Bible, the original source of all certain knowledge in regard to 
the proper doctrines of Christianity ; and in many cases openly contradicts 
the clear expressions of Holy Writ. 
The Greek Catholic Church forms a second of these branches. It differs 
from that just described mainly in refusing to recognise the bishop of 
Rome as the sovereign Pontiff of the Christian church. 
The Protestants. compose a third party, which is again broken into 
numerous smaller sects, as the Meformed, the Old Lutheran, the United 
(Evangelical) churches of the European continent; the Anglican or Episco- 
palian, the Preshyterian, the Independent, &c., of England; and the 
Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, &c. &c., in the United 
States. Indeed so great has been the tendency towards dissent and party 
spirit, that the earnest labors of those pure, noble, and elevated minds which 
have always striven to unite men in the rational affectionate ‘“ worship of 
God in spirit and in truth,” have hitherto proved unsuccessful. 
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