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the past century and especially during the past quarter century, the origin of Christainity has been fully exposed, its rise has been traced in detail, its early struggles noted, its gradual changes recorded, its growth, its dogmas and doctrines have been patiently studied and minutely decribed. Its family likeness to other religions has been noted and its relationship discovered. It is easy to see how much Christianity bas adopted from other and older religions or this and that older cosmogony, whence it copied its organization and from whence it collected the miscellaneous literature to form its Bible; whence it took its festivals, its liturgies and rituals and even its architecture its vestments and Sacred paraphernalia.
Christianity stands to day before the world completely "explained". Every Christian knows that he can procure from any well-known bookseller volumes that will disprove completely and scientifically the devine origin of Christianity, and every step in its progress is laid bare and shown to be indisputably due to purely natural causes. And Christians also know that these books have not been written by scoffers but generally by men of profound learning, of intense earnestness and deep piety and frequently of great ability, many of whom have devoted a lifetime to untiring study and research of these subjects. Christians also know that there is not an article in their creed which has not been analysed
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