THE PEIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 279 



formed the front of the Aryan wave, and were perhaps 

 as much Turanian as Aryan. In like manner, the 

 same indications connect the Toltecans, Peruvians, 

 and Alleghans with the south of Asia and Polynesia ; 

 and the Esquimaux, the Chippewyans, and the West 

 Coast tribes with the Mongolian race of northern 

 Asia. Still, all these elements must have been nearer 

 to each other than they have been in historic times, 

 when the early migrations to America took place. 

 Lastly, all these elements of primitive faith point back 

 to a golden age of simplicity and piety, corrupted and 

 decaying under the influence of rudeness and barbar- 

 ism on the one hand, or of a sensual and ungodly 

 civilization on the other. 



We thus learn how the aboriginal American, and 

 probably, also, the primeval European, solved the great 

 question of the origin of the earth and man, and of 

 his own relation to the Supreme Being. With such 

 dim light of nature as he had, he could at least con- 

 ceive of higher spiritual beings and of a Creator, and 

 could feel that God was nigh to him. He had, it is 

 true, mixed up these primitive tenets with many cor- 

 ruptions and imaginings, but the substratum of his 

 faith was identical with that of the patriarchal age, as 

 revealed to us in Scripture, and whose truth is vouched 

 for, not only by the connection with it of the subse- 

 quent superstructure of revelation, but by the natural 

 and invincible persuasion of the existence of God, 

 which is ineradicable from the human mind in all 

 ages and places. 



