Other authorities have shown that the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians likewise venerated the relics of their lords and princes. “In the realms of Heathendom the same worship had flourished for ages before Christian saints or martyrs had appeared in the world. . . . From the earliest periods, the system of Buddhism has been propped up by relics, that have wrought miracles at least as well vouched as those wrought by the relics of St. Stephen, or by the ‘Twenty Martyrs’ [mentioned by Augustine].” (Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons, pages 177,178) In Kandy, Ceylon, a 400-year-old temple contains what is said to be Buddha’s tooth, “venerated by many millions of people.” (The Ceylon Daily News, April 1, 1950) Into the presence of this relic the British foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, was brought on January 1, 1950, in the hope it would miraculously cure his ailments.—New York Times, Jan. 16, 1950.

The heathen idea of attributing magical powers to bones, skulls, teeth and skins is so much older than Christianity, the above Catholic authority chooses to call it “a primitive instinct”. In reality it is nothing more than fetishism, concerning which the Encyclopedia Americana (1942 ed., vol. 11, p. 158) says: “It is the lowest of the unsystematic forms of worship found among uncivilized tribes, and exists especially among the Negroes of Africa, but also among the natives of both Americas, the Polynesians, Australians, and Siberians.” When Catholic Portuguese mariners sailed down the west coast of Africa they could see little difference between the worship of “sacred” bones, skulls and charms by the natives, and their own worship of religious relics and amulets which they called feitiços, and from which we get the name fetish.

M’Clintock & Strong’s Cyclopœdia (vol. 8, p. 1028) well sums up the whole matter when it says: “There is no doubt that the worship of relics is an absurdity, without the guarantee of Scripture, directly contrary to the practice of the primitive Church, and irreconcilable with common-sense.”

Fraudulent Religious Relics

AS AN honest, upright and sincere person you love truth and righteousness. You love those who speak the truth, who are honest and can be trusted. Naturally you hate all liars, thieves and cheats. Fakers of all kinds you despise, and especially so when you discover them to be among your closest friends in whom you have in times past put your implicit trust. And if there are any such masked frauds moving among your circle of associates you are happy and glad if your real friends point them out, in order that you in turn may warn other honest persons like yourself. It is therefore as true friends of the honest-hearted that we call attention to the relic racketeers that operate in the name of religion, and who have for many centuries filched from and plundered credulous people with their fake merchandise. Here are the facts.

Relic worship is of pagan origin and was introduced in the Roman Catholic religion many centuries ago. The Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. 12, pages 734-738) not only admits this, but also discloses other very startling facts about where these relics