This book presents a suggestive rather than an exhaustive treatment of these influences,
and of their effect on historic Christianity. The author has aimed to make a volume which
busy men may read, rather than one whose bulk would relegate it to the comparative silence
of library shelves. The following pages treat four practical points in Christianity, without
attempting to enter the field[viii] of speculative theology, leaving that to a future time,
or to the pen of another—viz.: The influence of pagan thought upon the Bible, and its
interpretation; upon the organized Church, through the pagan water-worship cult; upon
the practices and spiritual life of the Church by substituting pagan holidayism for
Christian Sabbathism, through the sun-worship cult; and upon the spiritual life and
subsequent character of the Church, by the union of Church and State, and the subjugation
of Christianity to the civil power, according to the pagan model. Facts do not cease to be
facts, though denied and ignored. They do not withdraw from the field of history, though men
grow restive under their condemnation. I have dealt mainly with facts, giving but brief space
to “conclusions.” I have written for those who are thoughtful and earnest; who are anxious to
know what the past has been, that they may the better understand the duties of the present and
the unfolding issues of the future. Such will not read the following pages with languid interest
nor careless eyes.