RELIGION AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 15 



Similarly, the idea of seeking proselytes to one's own religion was, at 

 first, quite antagonistic to the instincts of faith. The favor of Brahma, 

 the blessings of Jehovah, were privileges of the chosen people of these 

 gods ; especial boons, which were not to be rashly cheapened by ad- 

 mitting foreigners to them. The sudra, however, desirous of knowing 

 and worshiping the Brahmanic deities, was never allowed to read the 

 Veda, or join in the most holy ceremonies. 



Now, from this local character of ancient divinities it is evident 

 what greater influence political conditions would have on religion 

 than is possible in our day, when state and church are so independent 

 of each other. In races, like the Aryan, where the early organiza- 

 tion was into small communities with a patriarchal or quasi-xe^yxhli- 

 can government, where both the diversified face of the land and their 

 own free spirit kept a host of small cities and states in independent 

 existence, there the loose coalescence which comes through commerce, 

 and identity of speech and civilization into a national life and religion, 

 does nothing to destroy the various local gods, and we have, as in 

 India, Greece, and Germany, a bewildering pantheon of divinities, 

 many most similar to one another, because originally representative 

 of aspects of the same natural objects or phenomena. Their religion 

 was as full of variety and as lacking in centralization as their political 

 system. 



The first result on religion of advance toward national unity is, 

 therefore, a great multiplication of deities. But soon other forces are 

 called into play. Wherever, by conquest, intermarriage of princes, or 

 treaties of alliance, two or more small states are thoroughly merged 

 into a larger, there a coalescence of their gods and diminution of the 

 number of the divinities are apt to take place. While their fetich- 

 gods — divinities of merely local origin, mountain, earth, tree, cavern, 

 river — would be different, the elemental gods — deities of sun, moon, 

 sky, wind, and storm — would be common, to both, and have more or 

 less common features. They would, therefore, be readily identified, 

 and their worship, under a name and ritual compounded, very likely, 

 from the traditions of both tribes, would gain in popularity, while the 

 more local gods, worshiped only by parts of the new nation, would 

 fall into oblivion. 



Again, when an ancient nation was subjugated, it was not believed 

 to be due merely to the weakness of the people, or their inferior cour- 

 age or military skill ; but the people's tutelar deities were supposed 

 to have withdrawn their protection, or to have been shown inferior in 

 their guardian power to the gods of the victorious people. The people 

 often, therefore, voluntarily abandoned their own deities, to secure the 

 more effective protectorship of the victorious gods. In the wake of 

 the great armies of Assyria and Rome, faith after faith of antiquity 

 was left a wreck of its former self, its sacred prestige ruined, and its 

 gods degraded into subordinates of the triumphant foreign deities. 



