10 



man, we have been placed in relations to our fellow-creatures 

 by a Supreme Authority, and that these relations which He 

 has established we have observed or violated. Hence it does 

 not matter whether our fellow-man be cognisant of our action 

 or not, we are alike self-condemned or self-applauded in the 

 presence of the great King. But this could not be, unless 

 we stood in conscious relation to Him as the rightful Supreme 

 Euler. 



This inward testimony to the existence of a Supreme 

 Kuler is universal. Hence all nations, as far back as we can 

 trace their existence, have had a religion and a God. And 

 the more primitive their condition the more precise and 

 definite their views on the relations they sustain to the Creator 

 and Upholder of all things. During the present century the 

 ancient records of Egypt, of Assyria, and the whole of Meso- 

 potamia have been disinterred and read ; researches in Persia 

 have brought to light the condition of the whole Iranian 

 tribes prior to the reformation of Zoroaster, and as its conse- 

 quence ; while the Vedas, the religious poems of their 

 kindred Indian Aryans, have been written and translated ; 

 and profound researches into the ancient literature of China 

 have unveiled the doctrine and the worship of the Chinese 

 before and since Confucius ; and the result of the whole is, that 

 we find in these nations, from the time of their existence as 

 separate and distinct communities, religion, after the special 

 manner of each, was the primary and most prominent pecu- 

 liarity of their combined action. 



In Egypt, religion entered into the entire social and indivi- 

 dual life of the nation, regulating every private action and 

 requiring a varied and complete virtue, which furnished terms 

 for every Christian grace to the Coptic translators of the New 

 Testament. While it ruled the people, it controlled the King, 

 who was the High Priest of the Supreme God. In Assyria a 

 pure and dominant despotism prevailed, such as we might 

 expect from the successors of him who was a " mighty hunter 

 before the Lord." In the records of the Mesopotamians, 

 therefore, we see only the king, who undertakes all his works, 

 builds all his cities, fights all his battles at the bidding of the 

 God, his father, and to establish his worship. The Iranians, as 

 might be expected from their nomadic and quiet and contem- 

 plative character and habits, returned to the pure and simple 

 worship of the Creator, whose only symbol was brilliant light, 

 and with whom no moral corruption could abide. In Ahuro 

 Magdao they partly beheld the varied, full, and limitless 

 perfection which the Jew saw in Jehovah; hence their 

 morality embraced every devout, individual, and social virtue, 



