RELIGION IN MESOPOTAMIA. 



179 



are common to men in all parts of the world to-day, they arise 

 largely from the observation of natural phenomena. Prompted 

 by the instinct of natural religion, they were developed and 

 expanded by different tribal temperaments into so-called sects 

 and religions ; and yet under new names and a changed environ- 

 ment it is possible to meet to-day in Mesopotamia most of the 

 Babylonian aspects of religious belief, so, fundamental were 

 these ancient conceptions. 



It has been said that in Mesopotamia there are more sects' 

 more gates to heaven and more roads to hell than in the United 

 States of America. All the divisions and sub-divisions of Islam 

 are represented here, every variety of Jewish belief and unbelief, 

 more than a dozen different Christian sects, all the latest produc- 

 tions of Western thought with the most antiquated forms of 

 Indian philosophy. 



Besides the Sufis and Babis from Persia there are the Sabeans 

 and the Yezidees, in whose religious opinions one finds Judaism, 

 Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Star Worship, 

 and Ornithomancy, all jumbled together in glorious confusion. 



A pilgrimage to any of the sacred shrines is a sure passage to 

 Paradise ; none know the Babylonian nether world better than 

 the Yezidees or Devil-worshippers of Nineveh, and the Sabean 

 theology abounds with hells and innumerable demonic rulers. 



My second remark is that " One Babylonian family 

 which founded the most remarkable race of the world's history 

 received Divine guidance, so that mankind's fundamental 

 conceptions based upon Natural Religion were clarified and 

 controlled under the influence of what we call Divine revelation." 



Bishop Butler has said that " Revelation is a republication 

 of Natural Religion and a supplement to it, and a Revelation 

 to Mankind must fall within the grasp of all men or it would fail 

 to be a Revelation." Consequently when we compare the 

 Biblical story of Creation with the Babylonian or other records, 

 we affirm of the former that though, according to many Scientists 

 and Commentators, it cannot conceivably be an absolutely correct 

 account of Creation, yet it is nevertheless as correct an explanation 

 of the origin of the Cosmos as it is possible to place within the 

 grasp of finite man, and that it is apparently more correct than any 

 other attempt that has been made to explain the mystery. 



Dr. Driver suggested that the Hebrew and the Babylonian 

 narratives of the Flood evidently have a common origin. In its ^ 

 Hebrew form the story becomes a symbolical embodiment of 



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