Functions of the Gods. 65 



have in our modern days. By that harmonious 

 working between man and the Gods, nature answer- 

 ed to man as man answered to nature ; while man 

 did his duty, nature in her turn did her duty also ; 

 the failure of rain, the failure of crops, the failure 

 of sunshine, the presence of plague, or of any other 

 form of human misery, was seen as having its root 

 in the failure of humanity ; and man turned duti- 

 fully to that which he had neglected, and thus 

 readjusted the balance which his irregularity had 

 displaced. Let us try and see, as an example, one 

 concrete working in what we call natural evolution. 

 We will turn to the great God Varuna. He works 

 through water ; every manifestation of water is his, 

 whether on the physical or on any other plane, in 

 any of the forms that it may take, for what we call 

 " water " is naturally the lowest, coarsest manifesta- 

 tion, his physical body, as it were. He works with 

 it in nature in endless ways to dissolve, to combine, 

 to dissociate. When we take the greater workings, 

 how very grand is the conception we may gain of 

 the might of the God. Come back with me, far 

 back, into the past, ere humanity had taken form ; 

 there see the world as it then was ; see how, as 

 fire and water, Agni and Varuna are working on 

 every material to fit the world to be the birthplace 

 of the yet unborn humanity. See how Varuna is 



