The inferences to be drawn from this exhibit, in reference to the gradations and the vanishing point of the religions of savages, would seem to be something like the following:

1. The higher savages entertain a distinct idea of One Supreme, Beneficent Creator, with or without the notion of a devil, but accompanied by a general belief in many subordinate deities.

2. In the next lower grade the idea of one Beneficent Deity becomes more or less vague, but the belief in good and evil spirits is controlling.

3. In the third grade all notions of a Beneficent Deity dis

appear, and the Supreme Power assumes the character of a malignant divinity or devil. This faith is generally accompanied by a belief in subordinate divinities.

4. In the fourth grade the evil deity is succeeded by an undefined faith in many evil spirits.

5. In the fifth grade the notion of spirits of every kind becomes extremely vague, and nothing remains but a sensus numinis-an undefined sentiment of the supernatural.*

6. In the sixth grade we detect no trace of a consciousness of any existence above themselves and the material objects by which they are surrounded.

7. The belief in future existence is present through all these gradations of the theistic belief.

8. Some form of worship is almost every-where present, varying from prayer and the use of temples, through adoration of sun, moon, stars, mountains, elements, as the divine embodiments and intercessors, to rude sacrifices, sorcery, and witchcraft.

Where is the criterion for dissociating the lowest superstitions from the higher religions? Where, in this graduated series, shall we draw the line, and affirm that real religions lie upon one side, and absolutely no religion on the other? Evidently the vague sense of the supernatural manifested by the lowest savages is the vanishing point of overt human religion. We must believe that the religious capacity, or germ, of phenomenal religion, may be held to exist, even beyond this, to the very bottom of the scale.

This vague sense of something more powerful than man, or nature as understood by the savage, is something more than "the mere sensation of fear," felt by the dog or horse; since it is impossible that among the brutes physical fear is accompanied by any notion of superior existence, or of any dangerous existence beyond that which is immediately cognizable by the senses. The savage notion, which we have denominated a mere sentiment of the supernatural, is, therefore, contrary to the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, to be differentiated from "the feeling of a dog or a horse toward its master," and still more from "the baying of a dog to the moon." "It is absurd to say that fear invented the gods of most people," protested * Compare Max Müller: "Science of Language," second series, p. 445. Herder: "Philosophy of the History of Man," vol. i, p. 183.

Herder nearly a century ago. "Fear, as fear, invents nothing; it merely rouses the understanding to conjecture and to suppose something true or false.”

This sentiment of the supernatural seems, also, to be more than "a dim and undefined sense of dependence," which Morell* considers "the first bud of feeling out of which the religious emotions gradually germinate." It is something more, even, than "an absolute feeling of dependence upon nature,' which Morell regards as the lowest phase of positive religious manifestation. The lowest savage having any superstitions, seems to be actuated by a sentiment, not to say a belief, of power residing in mysterious and unknown being.' He feels a dependence upon its caprice or will; he fears it; but the religious essence is neither the feeling of dependence nor the fear. It is both, united with the sense of mysterious, powerful existence. Says Herder:-

Savages have this feeling of the powers of nature even when they have no express idea of God. As soon as man learned to use his understanding on the slightest impulse, that is to say, as soon as he beheld the world in a manner different from a brute, he must have believed in more powerful invisible beings that benefited or injured him. These he sought to make or preserve his friends; and thus religion, true or false, right or erroneous, was introduced.t

Naturally, since this primitive savage has no abstract ideas, this power, whose presence he feels, will be lodged in the material objects by which he is surrounded, and the representatives of superior races which may visit him. His worship will be prompted by fear, and his divinities will be malignant. Until he rises to the practical belief that his divinities are beyond his control, his religion will be Fetichism. When he reaches this point his religion is Totemism, and he begins to

* Morell: "Philosophy of Religion," p. 81.

Herder: "Philosophy of History," vol. i, pp. 457, 183.

Fetichism Sir John Lubbock is reluctant to regard as a religious manifestation, as we have seen. Mr. Morell, however, says, ("Philosophy of Religion," p. 79,) "The ignorant heathen makes his idol the absolute power, and trusts implicitly to it. Such an absolute dependence upon a fetich or image, as far as it is a genuine experience, is essentially religion." Burton, also, who writes without heed to the interests of Orthodoxy, says of witchcraft and sorcery, that they are the "vestiges of that fetichism which is the first dawn of religion in the breast of the savage and barbarian."-Abeokuta, vol. i, p. 202.

The brutal

feel that some of his divinities are beneficent. struggle with the adversities of his existence, though still absorbing, leaves some space for the enjoyment of peace, plenty, and good-will, and he feels that something more than malevolence controls his lot. But the most powerful beings are still malignant. When his intelligence has risen sufficiently to enable him to discern the superior grandeur of certain objects in nature, he confines his worship to the heavenly bodies and the elements, as the abodes, or sometimes the representatives, of the powers toward whom his devotion is directed. At this stage of development his religion is Shamanism, and the beneficent principle begins to assume a distinct and controlling personality, and to become the object of a purer devotion. As intelligence rises still higher, the idea of malignant deities becomes subordinate, and the whole religious nature is centered around the conception of the one Beneficent Creator. But anthropomorphism and idolatry continue to exemplify a rude conception of the Divine character.

The survey which we have taken of the religious manifestations of primitive peoples seems to render it clear that phenomena which cannot be differentiated from the religious class make their appearance generally among the lowest savage tribes, and, even with our present knowledge of savages, may be pronounced well-nigh universal. The religions susceptibility which underlies all these phenomena may reasonably be regarded as belonging to all savages without exception. If, therefore, we had to form our opinion of the essential characteristics of human nature from a study of those portions of the human family which contribute least to our conception of the character of man, the almost universal prevalence of the religious trait would compel us to take it into the account and pronounce man, as so many others have done, by nature a religious being.

When, from the religious phenomena of savages, we turn to the history of mankind at large and consider the wide prevalence of vast religious systems, the religious pretensions of all schools of philosophy, and the Divine breathings of the poetry of all peoples, and, finally, the utter ineradicability of the religious sentiments of mankind, it would seem an act either of fatuity or perversity to deny that the ethical faculties

are fundamentally co-ordinate with the intellectual, and hence answer to correlates in the realm of being, as real as the existences revealed by the activity of any of the cognitive faculties of our nature.

We venture to close this discussion with an apostrophe from Herder, (so often quoted already,) the spiritual seer of man and nature :

No! Eternal Source of all life, all being, and all form, thou hast not forborne to manifest thyself to thy creatures. The prone brute obscurely feels thy power and goodness, while he exercises his faculties and appetites suitably to his organization; to him, man is the visible divinity of the earth. But thou hast exalted man, so that, even without his knowing or intending it, he inquires after the causes of things, divines their connection, and thus discovers thee, thou great Bond of all things, Being of beings! Thy inmost nature he knows not, for he sees not the essence of any one power; and when he would figure thee he has erred, and must err, for thou art without figure, though the first and sole Cause of all forms. Still, this false glimmering of thee is light; and the illusive altar he has erected to thee is an unerring monument, not only of thy being, but of the power of man to know and worship thee.*

ART. II. THE MILLENNIUM AND THE ADVENT.

THAT there is to be a millennium, and that there is to be an advent, is generally admitted by Christian people. That the millennium and the advent sustain very definite and very important relations, is the general conviction. That one must precede, that the other will follow, is freely conceded. But will the advent precede the millennium? or will the millennium precede the advent? This is the vital question to be determined, and this issue must be squarely met. Will the Lord come to introduce the millennium? or will the millennium prepare for the coming of the Lord? In some form or

*Herder: "Philosophy of History," vol. i, p. 183. We have never been able to discover, from a study of Herder's writings, the ground for classing him with many of the German pantheists; and we have multiplied quotations, partly with the view of doing justice to a misjudged thinker, and directing attention to a treasury of original thoughts and suggestions.