Its origin is thus traced by Mrs. Besant: "From the later Jews comes the Unity of God; from India and Egypt the Trinity in Unity; from India and Egypt the crucified Redeemer; from India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the virgin mother and the divine son; from Egypt its priests and its ritual; from the Essenes and the Therapeuts its asceticism; from Persia, India, and Egypt, its sacraments; from Persia and Babylonia its angels and devils; from Alexandria the blending into one of many lines of thought." (Freethinkers' Text Book, p. 392.) Concerning this, Judge Strange, another English writer, says: "The Jewish Scriptures and the traditionary teachings of their doctors, the Essenes and Therapeuts, the Greek philosophers, the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria and the Buddhism of the East, gave ample supplies for the composition of the doctrinal portion of the new faith; the divinely procreated personages of the Grecian and Roman pantheons, the tales of the Egyptian Osiris, and of the Indian Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, furnished the materials for the image of the new Savior of mankind." (Portraiture and Mission of Jesus, p. 27.) Dr. G. W. Brown, previously quoted, says: "The Eclectics formed the nucleus into which were merged all the various religions of the Orient. Mithra, of the Zoroastrians; Krishna and Buddha, of the Brahmans; Osiris, of the Egyptians, and Bacchus, of the Greeks and Romans, all disappeared and were lost in the new God Jesus, each of the predecessors contributing to the conglomerate religion known as Christian, Buddha and probably Bacchus contributing the most." Dr. John W. Draper, recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most erudite, one of the most philosophic, and one of the most impartial of historians, in the following paragraphs tells the story of the rise and triumph of this ever-changing faith: "In a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the Roman Empire to the world." "Not only as a token of the conquest she had made, but also as a gratification to her pride, the conquering republic brought the gods of the vanquished peoples to Rome. With disdainful toleration, she permitted the worship of them all. That paramount authority exercised by each divinity in his original seat disappeared at once in the crowd of gods and goddesses among whom he had been brought. Already, as we have seen, through geographical discoveries and philosophical criticism, faith in the religion of the old days had been profoundly shaken. It was, by this policy of Rome, brought to an end." "In one of the Eastern provinces, Syria, some persons in very humble life had associated themselves together for benevolent and religious purposes. The doctrines they held were in harmony with that sentiment of universal brotherhood arising from the coalescence of the conquered kingdoms. They were doctrines inculcated by Jesus."