440 RELIGION. 



strong argument in favor of this hypothesis that no word in 

 their language properly denotes God. Speaking of these 

 people, Mr. Moffat says : "I have often wished to find some- 

 thing by which I could lay hold on the minds of the natives ; 

 an ' altar to the unknown God,' the faith of their ancestors, 

 the immortality of the soul, or any religious association ; 

 but nothing of this kind ever floated in their minds. ' They 

 looked on the sun with the eyes of an ox.' To tell the great- 

 est of them that there was a Creator, the Governor of the 

 heavens and earths — of the fall of man, or the redemption of 

 the world — ^the resurrection of the dead, and immortality be- 

 yond the grave, was to tell them what appeared to be more 

 fabulous, extravagant, and ludicrous than their own vain 

 stories about lions, hysenas, and jackals. To tell them that 

 these (referring, of course, to the different elements of our 

 creed) were articles of our faith would extort an interjection 

 of superlative surprise, as if they were too preposterous for 

 the most foolish to believe." 



"'What is the difference'?' said a native one day to the 

 writer just quoted, pointing to his dog, ' between me and that 

 animal "? You say I am immortal, and why not my dog or 

 my ox ? They die ; and do you see their souls ? What is 

 the difference between man and beast? None, except that 

 man is the greater rogue of the two !' 



" They could not see that there was any thing in our cus- 

 toms more agreeable to flesh and blood than in their own, 

 but would, at the same time, admit that we were a wiser 

 and a superior race of beings to themselves. For this supe- 

 riority, some of their wise heads would try to account ; but 

 this they could only do on the ground of our own statement, 

 that God made man. 



"A wily fellow, who was the oracle of the village in which 

 he dwelt, once remarked, after hearing me enlarge on the 

 subject of creation, 'If you verily believe that one Being- 

 created all men, then, according to reason, you must also be- 



