IN LOWER MAN. 205 



of God. . . . They believe also in no future state of rewards 

 or punishments proportionate to their behaviour on earth, 

 which belief has always been found to be the germ of civi- 

 lisation. . . . Christianity has made scarcely any progress.' 1 

 Of one of the jungle Veddas of Ceylon Hartshorne tells us, 

 ' He had no idea of a soul, of a Supreme Being, nor of a 

 future state. He thought there was no existence after death. 

 He was conscious of no difference between himself and the 

 wild beasts which roamed through the forest.' As a whole 

 they ' appear to be almost devoid of any sentiment of reli- 

 gion, except in so far as may be inferred from their offering 

 a sacrifice to the spirit of one of their fellows immediately 

 after his decease.' The author of one of the most recent and 

 comprehensive works on Ceylon, ' an officer late of the 

 Ceylon Rifles,' says of these Veddas, ' They know nothing 

 of heaven or hell, or any kind of future existence.' Never- 

 theless, * so far from being savage, they are mild and inoffen- 

 sive. . . . Missionaries would be much better and more 

 usefully employed at home in reclaiming the worse than wild 

 beasts in human shape among ourselves. Veddas do not 

 exhibit any of the brutal, drunken ruffianism of the civilised 

 savages who infest our towns, bite people's noses off, or kick 

 their wives to death, and (these Veddas) are by far the 

 most civilised of the two.' This contrast between the native 

 character of the so-called savage, who has not yet been sub- 

 jected to the influences too frequently contaminating and 

 deteriorating of civilisation, and the behaviour of whole 

 classes of men and women in cities that superabound in 

 churches and in clergymen, has frequently been made by the 

 most competent authorities, and cannot be made too fre- 

 quently or too strongly. 



Of the negro of Angola Monteiro remarks, ' He has no 

 idea of a Creator, nor of a future existence. Neither does 

 he adore the sun, nor any other object, idol or image. His 

 whole belief is in evil spirits and in charms or fetiches.' 

 Kamrasi's people, near the Nyanza Lake, ' although far 

 superior to the tribes on the north of the Nile in general 

 intelligence, had no idea of a Supreme Being, nor any object 

 1 ' Religious Rites in Dahomey,' Sunday Magazine, vol. for 1876, p. 550. 



