THE RELIGIOUS IDEA. 701 



their names to be known) it is forbidden to call a dead man 

 by his real name, especially if distinguished ; and as among 

 the early Romans, it was a &quot; deeply cherished belief that tho 

 name of the proper tutelary spirit of the community ought to 

 remain for ever unpronounced ; &quot; so was it with the Hebrews 

 in early days : their god was not named. Dancing was a 

 form of worship among the Hebrews as it was among the 

 Greeks and among various savages : instance the Iroquois. 

 Fasts and penances like those of the Hebrews exist, or have 

 existed, in many places ; especially in ancient Mexico, 

 Central America, and Peru, where they were extremely 

 severe. The fulfilments of prophecies alleged by the 

 Hebrews were paralleled by fulfilments of prophecies alleged 

 by the Greeks ; and the Greeks in like manner took them 

 to be evidence of the truth of their religion. Nay we are 

 told the same even of the Sandwich Islanders, w r ho 

 said that Captain Cook s death &quot; fulfilled the prophecies of 

 the priests, who had foretold this sad catastrophe.&quot; The 

 working of miracles alleged of the Hebrew god as though it 

 were special, is one of the ordinary things alleged of the 

 gods of all peoples throughout the world. The translation of 

 the living Elijah recalls the Chaldean legend of Izdubar s 

 &quot; translated ancestor, Hasisadra or Xisuthrus ; &quot; and in New 

 World mythologies, there are the cases of Hiawatha, who 

 was carried living to heaven in his magic canoe, and the 

 hero of the Arawaks, Arawanili. As by the Hebrews, 

 Jahveh is represented as having in the earliest times 

 appeared to men in human shape, but not in later times ; 

 BO by the Greeks, the theophany frequently alleged in the 

 Iliad, becomes rare in traditions of later date. Nay, the 

 like happened with the ancient Central Americans. Said 

 an Indian in answer to Fr. Bobadilla &quot; For a long time our 

 gods havo not come nor spoken to them [the devotees]. But 

 formerly they used to do so, as our ancestors told us.&quot; 



Nor do parallelisms fail us when we turn to the more 

 developed form of the Hebrew religion. That the story of 



