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 Heavenly Bridegrooms

incidence that the name Rhea, which was one of the names of the Mother of all the gods, is applied by one writer to the Virgin Mary who likewise became the 'Mother of God'."

The Mongolian conqueror, Genghis Khan, and his two twin brothers were said to be the result of an occult union of the earthly mother with a mysterious intelligence.

"His mother having been left a widow, lived a retired life; but some time after the death of her husband, * * * * she was suspected to be pregnant. The deceased husband's relations forced her to appear before the chief judge of the tribe, for this crime. She boldly defended herself, by declaring that no man had known her; but that one day, lying negligently on her bed, a light appeared in her room, the brightness of which blinded her, and that it penetrated three times into her body, and that if she brought not three sons into the world, she would submit to the most cruel torments. The three sons were born, and the princess was esteemed a saint. The Moguls believe Genghis Khan to be the product of this miracle, that God might punish mankind for the injustice they had committed." Anacalypsis II. 353.

Of the conqueror, Tamerlane, who claimed direct descent from Genghis Khan on the mother side, it is related that he was the result of a connection of his mother with the God of day.

Dean Milman says, in his History of Christianity (Bible Myths, p. 119.)

"Fo-hi of China according to tradition was born of a virgin, and the first Jesuit missionaries who went to China were appalled at finding, in the mythology of that country, a counterpart of the story of the Virgin of Judea."

But, had those same Jesuit missionaries apprehended the idea which lies back of both stories the substantiality of the unseen world beyond the grave and the possibility of marital relations on the borderland of that world and this, they would not have been thus "appalled." Mother of Confucius, says one tradition, when walking in a solitary place, was impregnated by the vivifying influence of the heavens.

The Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tse, born 604 B. C., the founder of the Religion of the Supreme Reason, was said tohave