It is wonderful to find in what widely-severed countries, and amongst what millions of the human race at this day, who never saw a Negro, a Negro god is worshipped. But yet, as we shall afterwards see, among the civilised nations of antiquity, Nimrod almost everywhere fell into disrepute, and was deposed from his original pre-eminence, expressly ob deformitatem, "on account of his ugliness." Even in Babylon itself, the posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all his father's glory, yet possessing more of his mother's complexion, came to be the favourite type of the Madonna's divine son. This son, thus worshipped in his mother's arms, was looked upon as invested with all the attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The Lord, so Tammuz was called Adon or Adonis. Under the name of Mithras, he was worshipped as the "Mediator." As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8:33). In this character he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the well known symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or Saviour of men, though a god, he was worshipped as the great "Victim-Man," who before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice. The Hindoo sacred writings teach that this mysterious offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have ever been offered since. *
* In the exercise of his office as the Remedial god, Vishnu is said to "extract the thorns of the three worlds." (MOOR'S Pantheon) "Thorns" were a symbol of the curse--Genesis 3:18. Do any marvel at such a statement being found in the sacred books of a Pagan mythology? Why should they? Since sin entered the world there has been only one way of salvation, and that through the blood of the everlasting covenant--a way that all mankind once knew, from the days of righteous Abel downwards. When Abel, "by faith," offered unto God his more excellent sacrifice than that of Cain, it was his faith "in the blood of the Lamb slain," in the purpose of God "from the foundation of the world," and in due time to be actually offered up on Calvary, that gave all the "excellence" to his offering. If Abel knew of "the blood of the Lamb," why should Hindoos not have known of it? One little word shows that even in Greece the virtue of "the blood of God" had once been known, though that virtue, as exhibited in its poets, was utterly obscured and degraded. That word is Ichor.