THE PEIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 251 



usually more or less corrupted, of what those who 

 believe in divine revelation would regard as revealed 

 religion. These considerations, from the point of 

 view of the Christian, greatly modify Miiller's classifi- 

 cation. They further lead us to suppose that the 

 Semitic religions will be found to be those most im- 

 pregnated with revealed truth as we hold it, for our 

 God is the " Lord God of Shem/" The Aryan reli- 

 gions will be those bearing most evidence of the 

 exuberance of human fancy, for Japhet's destiny is 

 " expansion," if not "delusion;-" while the wild old 

 Turanian races, which I have endeavoured to show in 

 previous chapters are the most primitive of all, may 

 be expected to have religions the least mixed with the 

 later ideas of revelation, and most stamped with the 

 impress of its earliest truths, as well as with the 

 general features of natural religion. 



We have seen that the aboriginal races of America 

 are Turanian in features and in language and customs, 

 and they existed unmixed with other peoples, and un- 

 visited by missionaries of the " book-religions," up to 

 a very recent period. We can learn with much cer- 

 tainty the tenets of their religious belief, as it existed 

 in tribes and nations both in a state of barbarism and 

 in various stages of civilization. We can scarcely 

 propose to ourselves a more interesting question in 

 the present state of religious controversy, than that 

 which relates to the beliefs of these people. How 

 much did they know of what we regard as truth, 

 whether in the domain of natural or revealed religion ? 



