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Christian theology often had a great tendency to develop itself in a wrong 
direction. I ask you whether the Christianity of the New Testament is not 
of a very different kind, and of a much higher development, than the Chris- 
tianity of the middle ages ; and whether out of the pure monotheism of the 
Bible there has not been a tendency to develop into polytheism % I do not 
deny that religions sometimes exhibit a tendency to grow upwards, but as a 
general rule their tendency is downwards ; and certainly a more rational 
mode of constructing a history of religion in prehistoric times would be to 
argue from the known to the unknown, and not from the unknown to the 
known. (Cheers.) It gives us a fine opportunity for speculation when we 
get into the unknown and the intangible, but I prefer the known, and 
my process of reasoning would be to take the reverse course from that 
pursued by Sir John Lubbock. I do . not think there is any fairness in 
assuming that religion began in its lowest form and gradually advanced 
to higher forms in prehistoric times ; and it seems to me to involve 
several very serious assumptions before you can arrive at any such con- 
clusion. Sir John Lubbock has much to say about witchcraft and ghosts, 
and so forth; but I believe that in the most civilized countries you 
could pick up many other similar matters, and arrange them in a similar 
manner. It is remarkable that a vast amount of 'superstition prevails in 
every country. There is also a great deal about charms and things of that 
kind in Sir John Lubbock’s book ; but we all know that a belief in such 
obtains even in our own day. We have heard of witches, and magic 
spells, and “charms.” These things exist in most countries, and from such 
you could construct a theory quite as good as Sir John Lubbock has con- 
structed as to the beliefs of uncivilized man. (Cheers.) 
Kev. G. Percy Badger. — I should like to say one word on this sub- 
ject. How Sir John Lubbock or .any one can know what the religion of 
prehistoric times was, I am at a perfect loss to conceive. Such monumental 
evidence as we have of the earliest times, is rather in favour of the religion 
of that period being monotheistic, than in favour of its being polytheistic. 
Take, for example, Tsabaism and to show how people, and often very Earned 
people, make great mistakes in trying to get acquainted with the religion of 
foreign countries, I may mention that the Greeks said that the Arabs ha 
two gods, one of whom was called Orotalt, and the other Alilat, and they 
made out the latter to be Venus. Now, “ Orotalt ” is undoubtedly a corrup- 
tion of the Arabic Alldh-Ta’dlah, the Most High God, a title then, as now, 
given by the Arabs to the one only true God. Everybody knows that the 
Tsabians believed in one all-powerful God, to whom they devoted themselves, 
though they believed in inferior deities who dwelt in the fixed stars and 
planets. There is no question that Tsabaism originally was a pure mono- 
theism. Mr. Row has spoken of Sir John Lubbock’s assumptions. Now, 1 
wonder why on earth Sir J ohn Lubbock, or any one else who quotes .esio" 
and Homer, objects to quote the Bible. (Cheers.) Is not Moses as good an 
authority as either of these pagan writers ? Herodotus, for instance, wrote a 
