The Roman Catholic Church has two far mightier enemies than the “heretics” and the “infidels;” and these are--Comparative Mythology and Philology. When such eminent divines as the Rev. James Freeman Clarke go so much out of their way to prove to their readers that “Critical Theology from the time of Origen and Jerome ... and the Controversial Theology during fifteen centuries, has not consisted in accepting on authority the opinions of other people,” but has shown, on the contrary, much “acute and comprehensive reasoning,” we can but regret that so much scholarship should have been wasted in attempting to prove that which a fair survey of the history of theology upsets at every step. In these “controversies” and critical treatment of the doctrines of the Church one can certainly find any amount of “acute reasoning,” but far more of a still acuter sophistry. Recently the mass of cumulative evidence has been re-inforced to an extent which leaves little, if any, room for further controversy. A conclusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt the fact that India was the _Alma-Mater_, not only of the civilization, arts, and sciences, but also of all the great religions of antiquity; Judaism, and hence Christianity, included. Herder places the cradle of humanity in India, and shows Moses as a clever and relatively _modern_ compiler of the ancient Brahmanical traditions: “The river which encircles the country (India) is the sacred Ganges, which all Asia considers as the paradisaical river. There, also, is the biblical Gihon, which is none else but the Indus. The Arabs call it so unto this day, and the names of the countries watered by it are yet existing among the Hindus.” Jacolliot claims to have translated every ancient palm-leaf manuscript which he had the fortune of being allowed by the Brahmans of the pagodas to see. In one of his translations, we found passages which reveal to us the _undoubted origin of the keys_ of St. Peter, and account for the subsequent adoption of the symbol by their Holinesses, the Popes of Rome. He shows us, on the testimony of the _Agrouchada Parikshai_, which he freely translates as “the _Book of Spirits_” (Pitris), that centuries before our era the _initiates_ of the temple chose a Superior Council, presided over by the Brahm-âtma or supreme chief of all these _Initiates_. That this pontificate, which could be exercised only by a Brahman who had reached the age of eighty years;[41] that the Brahm-âtma was sole guardian of the mystic formula, _résumé_ of every science, contained in the three mysterious letters, =A= =U= =M=