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But through all the polytheisms of the earth there runs this one conviction, that the whole outward universe is filled with spiritual powers. Behind all matter is spirit; above all that we see, is the unseen; the phenomena which pass before our eyes in nature do not come from any iron fate or any blind chance, but from intelligence, purpose, a will that chooses, a heart that desires, a mind that creates. In all polytheisms there is unity and variety; in some of them the unity is more pronounced, in others the variety.

§ 10. Arrested and progressive development. reached by Zoroaster. The Duad.

Point

Animism thus develops itself naturally into polytheism. But at this point, in some religions, the development is arrested; in others the movement goes forward. The Vedic religion passed on into Brahmanism, which was the worship of a Triad Brahma, the Creator; Siva, the Destroyer; and Vishnu, the Restorer-in which the circle of change was completed. Some of the Vedic prophets and sages were occupied with the problem of creation. Out of this came in one part of India the worship of Brahma. On another class of minds the destructive force of nature laid a stronger hold. Where the first saw life, growth, adaptation, development, the second class of think ers saw decay, war, death, destruction. The wor

ship of Siva originated in the latter view. As Brahma represented all the creative powers of nature, so Siva represented all the destructive forces of nature. Then came the Vishnu worship as another step. Admitting that there is creation and destruction in nature, it is evident that there are also forces which restore and renew, and maintain the harmony of the world. The antagonistic forces of nature are brought again into peace, and, after all struggle, a great unity and harmony remain supreme. This is represented by the Triad worship as we find it in the Hindu religion.

The ancient Persian race, in the religion of Zoroaster, did not for a long time reach this conception of a supreme existing harmony, but saw in nature only perpetual war.

Zoroaster, a highly moral person, saw evil as a hateful power, very present and real, and to be fought with forever. To him good and evil represented everything in nature. A fearful elemental and spiritual war is forever going on around us, and we are to be soldiers of the good. We have to fight on the side of Ormazd, King of Light, against Ahriman, Prince of Darkness. In the present age there will be no end to this terrific war, in which all the powers of the universe are engaged, on one side or the other. But in the last days, an end, good will tri

after this age has come to

umph and all evil disappear, transformed into pu

rity, truth, and love. The religion of Zoroaster, then, may be considered as the primitive religion which had passed up through a Polytheism like that of the Vedic system into a dualism, where it was long arrested, chiefly by the vast influence of this great prophet.

§ 11. Degenerate polytheism becomes idolatry. How Religions decay.

While the development of the Persian religion was long arrested in the Duad, and that of India for a time in the Triad, other Polytheisms degenerated into idolatry. Idol-worship is polytheism pushed to its extreme limits. In this degenerate system, which has so widely prevailed, the unity in nature-worship has been wholly overcome by the variety. The divine powers have been detached from the All of Things, and become independent local deities, each worshipped in his own home and at his own altar. Such were Baal and Ashtaroth in Syria, Juggernauth and Rudra in India, Osiris and Typhon in Egypt, Artemis at Ephesus, Aphrodite at Cyprus and Corinth. In this form of worship, passions, instead of being restrained, are deified. Each man worships the God after his own heart, and so justifies his own limitations. He makes his gods not merely like himself, but like his lower self, his one-sided self.

Social religions, like social institutions, are sub

ject to dilapidation and relapses. Many religions stand before us in history as majestic ruins. When you penetrate the thick jungles of Yucatan, and come on the ruins of Palenque, you find vast structures, covered with carved ornaments and mysterious symbols, indications of a lost race, a forgotten creed, and a long-buried civilization. So it is with many religions, as they emerge into the light of present knowledge from the profound night of an unknown past. Instead of being arrested at an upward stage of development they have all the mark of being the decayed remains of purer and nobler religion. In the case of Hinduism, we have the whole story of this rise and progress, followed by a decline and fall. We see it commence in a pure nature-religion, which is a thinly-veiled Monotheism. We see it developed into a vast system of philosophies, ethics, literature, art. Meantime a priesthood has grown up and acquired supreme control. Under its influence a complicated theology is developed and a ritual formed. As the first stage appears in the Vedic hymns, the second is seen in the laws of Manu, the three great systems of philosophy, the poems of Kalidas, and the two epics. Then followed the third period of gradual dilapidation, when worship became idolatry. Theology degenerated into the myths of the Puranas, and the pure morality of earlier times disappeared in ceremonial sacrifices

offered to a Pantheon of cruel or voluptuous deities. In this case we see the process of dilapidation and decay which has been going on for thousands of years. The decay has been going on, but dissolution has not come. Life still remains in this religion, and the possibility of revival. The heart of India is still full of reverence for the unknown God, who is behind its idolatries; it is still held by its ancient Vedas, as by an anchor, to a better faith. It is, therefore, a dilapidated and relapsed, but not a dead religion.

A worse fate befell the religion of Egypt. Highest in the earliest period, it gradually degenerated to the hour when it finally disappeared and passed away forever. It began in a pure monotheism, as is positively affirmed by Herodotus, and confirmed by De Rougé and Renouf. It declared that God is the only One, whose life is Truth, that He has made all things, and that He alone has not been made. "More than five thousand years ago, in the valley of the Nile, the Hymn began to the Unity of God, and the immortality of the soul, and we find in the last ages Egypt arrived at the most unbridled polytheism." 1 "The sublimer parts of the Egyptian religion are demonstrably ancient," and "its last stage was by far the grossest and most corrupt." The oldest inscriptions emphasize justice, mercy, love of right, hate of wrong, kind

1. P. Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 91.

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