714 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



element of every religion, we see sacrifice and prayer, 

 gratitude and hope, as well as the expectation of getting 

 benefits proportionate to propitiations. 



596. An interpretation is thus furnished of the fact that 

 in undeveloped societies the priestly function is generally 

 diffused. 



We find this to be the case at present among the un 

 civilized ; as in New Caledonia, where &quot; almost every family 

 has its priest ;&quot; as in Madagascar, where other worships have 

 arisen &quot; long subsequently to the prevalence of the worship 

 of household gods ;&quot; and as among the aborigines of India, 

 who, though they propitiate ancestors, have not &quot; in general, 

 a regular and established priesthood.&quot; So, too, was it with 

 the people who made the first advances in civilization the 

 Egyptians. Each family maintained the sacrifices to its own 

 dead; and the greater deities had a semi-private worship, 

 carried on by actual or nominal descendants. The like held 

 of the Greeks and Romans, who joined sacrifices made 

 to their public gods, chiefly by priests, with sacrifices made 

 by private persons to their household gods who were dead 

 relatives. And it is the same at the present time in China, 

 where priesthoods devoted to wider worships, have not sup 

 planted the primitive worship of departed progenitors by 

 their offspring. 



Having thus observed that in the earliest stage, propitiation 

 of the double of a dead man by offerings, praises, etc., is 

 carried on by surviving relatives, we have now to observe 

 that this family-cult acquires a more definite form by the 

 devolution of its functions on one member of the family. 



