All the ancient religions had their _Cabala_—secret words and initiations—and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are no exceptions, as is seen upon their very surface. We may not have all their secrets—some of them may not be proper things to write about in our day—but no fair man of intelligence can successfully deny that many of those things which are absurd if taken for historical truth are at once explained by reference to the solar cults of the ancients. Many theologians have virtually admitted that there is nothing injurious to the interests of true religion in the hypothesis here presented, but, on the contrary, there is much that is truly beautiful and calculated to elevate and inspire the devout mind. Even the distinguished Albertus, of the twelfth Christian century, surnamed _the Great_ for his attainments as a scholastic ecclesiastic, did not hesitate to write: “All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ, and all the circumstances of his marvellous life from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations and are figured in the stars.” “The Gospel in the Stars” was the significant advertisement of a course of sermons recently delivered in a prominent Lutheran church in Philadelphia by a learned doctor of divinity, and, though many of his hearers thought that the title should have been “The Stars in the Gospel,” it was certainly an evidence of progress and increasing light to have a frank admission from such a source that all the truths of the gospel and the doctrines of the Reformation were prefigured in the celestial heavens and illustrated in the constellations of the solar zodiac. This author admits the identity between the tenets of the astro-theology of ancient sun-worshippers and the present dominant theology of Christendom, but assumes that the original construction of the celestial heavens and its fanciful division into constellations had reference to, and in fact prefigured, what was literally fulfilled in Christianity. He finds in the solar zodiac of Esne in Egypt as clear predictions of the coming of Christ as he finds in Isaiah or any other Jewish prophet. Thus, he “gives away” the whole argument, and unwittingly admits the natural origin of all the distinctive tenets of modern dogmatic theology. This last craze may well be regarded as a compound of scientific trifling and theological, moonshine. But it is said by theologians that man is depraved, and that the present moral status of humanity confirms the dogma of total depravity by descent through fallen and depraved ancestors. This involves the question, What is depravity?