Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.Inman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.
Inman, Thomas
Religions
We now, but with great reluctance, leave our friendly guide, the
accomplished Prescott, and ask ourselves, once more, the lessons which
we have learned from the departed races of the vast American continent.
Can anyone doubt that one of the most conspicuous results obtained
is, that Christian rule, and the Christian doctrine, have not proved
themselves, in any respect, superior to the Incas' government and their
solar religion? Who can read of the civilization, the theology, and the
practice of the Peruvians, without believing one of two things--the one,
that Jewish ritualism, and the majority of Christian teaching, is of
human invention; the other, that the Almighty has revealed His will in
the Western as well as in the Eastern Hemisphere? Can any thoughtful
man believe that the brutal, covetous, lying Spaniards, who broke,
with impunity, every commandment promulgated in those Gospels, to whose
authority they professed allegiance, and upon which their faith is
founded, were better men, or more favoured by the Lord, "who loveth
righteousness and hateth iniquity," than were the gentle Peruvians, who
fell before them as lambs and sheep before wolves and tigers? Surely the
story of the Incas should make Christians, in all ages, blush for their
inferiority to those, amongst whom neither Moses, Samuel, and other
so-called prophets, Jesus, nor any of his apostles, preached; and more
strongly should it convince us that the wish to do good on a large scale
can come otherwise than by the Gospel. If grace, and peace, and love
came by the Nazarene alone, how is it--and let us ponder over the
question deeply--that all Christian countries have been, and that some
are still, conspicuous for the brutality of their political and priestly
governments, for the frequency with which they make war, for their
ferocity in the destruction of religious enemies, and for the intense
hatred evinced against rival sects, by those who call themselves the
representatives of the Prince of Peace; whilst, on the other hand,
a nation who never heard of the son of Joseph or of Mary, should be
conspicuous for the virtues which ought to adorn the soldiers of the
cross, but do not? Surely, if the saying be true, "by their fruit ye
shall know them," the denizens of the old world must be children of the
Devil, who do the work, of their father, whilst certain of the nations
of the new world, as it is called, were really children of the light,
abounding in love, charity, and goodwill towards all men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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