It is said of "the Son of God" and Savior Chrishna that "he imparted his doctrines and precepts in the silent depths of the forest." Of the Egyptian God Osiris, we are informed in his sacred legends, that "he observed both fasting and penance," while Pythagoras of Greece spent several years in meditation and retirement in a cave, and was much given to fasting, and often inculcated the doctrine of "forsaking the world" and "the things thereof." He taught these things both by precept and example, even to "the forsaking of relations." Both Confucius and the Divine Savior Chang-ti of China, "in order to attain to a more perfect state of holiness," spent several years in retirement and "divine meditation," the former in a wilderness, the latter on a mountain, and fasted, and their disciples after them often fasted in a very devout manner. The Persian Zoroaster also spent several years in retirement and "contemplation on true holiness"--partly in a wilderness and partly on a "holy mountain," "holy mountains" being the favorite places of resort of most of the holy Saviors, holy Gods, and holy men of antiquity. One of the most ancient Saviors, Thammuz, is reported to have spent "twelve years in devout and contemplative retirement from the busy world." According to the Christian bible, Moses, Elijah, and Christ, each fasted forty days, and a Mexican Savior, too (Quexalcote), spent forty days in a similar manner, and other cases are so reported. We may institute the inquiry here, "How happens this coincidence?" The answer is indicated by "the Hierophant," which says, "Jesus in his baptism and forty days' fast imitated the passage of the sun through the constellation Aquarius, where John, Joannes, or Janus the baptizer had his domicile, and baptized the earth with his yearly rains." Having been baptized in Jordan, he fasted forty days in the wilderness, in imitation of the passage of the sun from the constellation Aquarius through the Fishes to the Lamb or Ram of March. During the forty days when the sun is among the Fishes (in the sign of the Fish) the faithful Catholics, Episcopalians and Mahommedans abstain from meat and live upon the fishes during the season of Lent, as did the Jews and pagans, and did also Jesus, "to fulfill all righteousness." CHAPTER XV. THE SAVIORS WERE REAL PERSONAGES IT is unwarrantably assumed by Christian writers that the incarnated Gods and crucified Saviors of the pagan religions were all either mere fabulous characters, or ordinary human beings invested with divine titles, and divine attributes; while, on the other hand, the assumption is put forth with equal boldness that Jesus Christ was a real divine personage, "seen and believed on in the world, and finally crucified on Mount Calvary." But we do not find the facts in history to warrant any such assumptions or any such distinctions. They all stand in these respects upon the same ground and on equal footing.