11 



enforced by present divine favour and blessing, and by an 

 everlasting reward. Their Indian kinsmen seem to have made 

 religion the stay and the luxury of their life. So far as we 

 can now see, they had fallen under the domination of an 

 oppressive priesthood, but still they struggled after the free 

 and friendly intercourse which their ancestors enjoyed, and 

 which for many generations was embalmed in the hymns 

 which they continued to sing when the experience they em- 

 bodied was forgotten. But one thing is conspicuous through- 

 out. Religion was the business of their lives. The Chinese, 

 from their first appearance as a distinct people, had clear con- 

 ceptions of the existence and present dominion of the Creator, 

 which they retain to this day, although their superstition has 

 peopled the heavens and the earth with multitudes of sub- 

 ordinate or ministering spirits who fulfil His will, so that 

 direct worship is now only paid to the Supreme Sovereign by 

 the Emperor on behalf of the whole empire represented in 

 their solemn services. The Phoenicians surpassed their neigh- 

 bours in the severity of their worship, offering human sacrifices 

 to appease the anger of God, which shows the strength of their 

 conviction as to the reality of His existence and rule. 



We cannot conceive of a religion which does not suppose 

 the dependence of the worshipper upon his God, and also of 

 real intercourse between them ; at any rate, so far as the 

 offer of worship by man and the bestowment of benefits by 

 God ; and in the ancient nations already mentioned, that God 

 was the Creator, notwithstanding the grouping of subordinates 

 around Him in subsequent times. Nor can this conviction of 

 the existence of a divine Creator and Ruler be ascribed to the 

 infancy and consequent immaturity of these peoples. First, 

 the definite precision of the doctrines forbids such a supposi- 

 tion, and the mechanical, scientific, artistic, and social pro- 

 ficiency of these nations at the time these precise and sharply- 

 cut decisions were commonly held, shows that they were not 

 lucky guesses of the ignorant, but the permanent opinions of 

 thoughtful men. 



M. Le Page Renouf, in the Hibbert Lecture of 1879, 

 quotes the late M. Emanuel Rouge's mature judgment con- 

 cerning Egypt, and declares that no scholar is better entitled 

 to be heard on this subject. " No one has called in question 

 the fundamental meaning of the principal passages by the 

 help of which we are able to establish what ancient Egypt has 

 taught concerning God, the world, and man. I say God, not 

 the gods. The first characteristic is the unity most ener- 

 getically expressed, God, one, sole, and only, not others 

 with Him. He is the only being living in truth : ' Thou art 



