THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 141 



pagan lands of the world that the student of evolution has so 

 often to turn for collateral evidence of the truths of revelation. 

 Persia furnishes some of the most beautiful and touching 

 legends of revelation, and the unearthed libraries of Assyria 

 have thrown more light on past records of history and revela- 

 tion than all else in science and discovery, or all the religious 

 teachings of centuries. But if religion had not altered to suit 

 the age, Civilisation would have never advanced, but have 

 stopped short in the future as it did in the past in the case of 

 China and Turkey. For it is most probable, though being 

 prehistoric, we can only in this instance make a guess that the 

 first God-made man was a Chinawoman's son. For the earliest 

 Chinese religious teachings give the most chronologically cor- 

 rect, if not the most accurate so far as detail is concerned, ac- 

 count of the creation of the world. And it appears to me that 

 the first dawn of religious belief had its origin in China some- 

 where about one hundred thousand years ago, in the materialis- 

 tic idolatry of that age, which accounts for the proficiency of the 

 Chinese and Eastern nations in all arts of necromancy. 



But the religions of this age of evolution were, of 

 necessity, the most elementary forms of superstitious wor- 

 ship of the earth and planets, so they did not rise to the heights 

 of Heaven, or of a heavenly deity or of a life hereafter. A 

 result it would be foolish to expect, for at this period every- 

 thing was of the earth, earthy, and mankind was but little 

 above the standard of an animal, and the requirements of the 

 age asked only for the rudest and simplest forms of govern- 

 ment, and religion is but a form of government. At the time 

 of the dawn of agriculture, knowledge was little advanced 

 above the rudest forms of gardening, so required that man 

 should devote his time and energies to the cultivation of the 

 soil, rather than to study or science or religious knowledge. 



Too great a love of knowledge would have given him a 

 distaste for digging, which when you allow for the poor quality 

 of his farming implements in both these ages, viz., that of 

 the stick and stone ages, farming must have been an arduous 

 and fatiguing task ; so it would be hard to imagine a greater 

 crime at this age of evolution than a distaste for hard bodily 

 work, and the student must have been looked upon with sus- 

 picion and distrust as a lazy loafer, and the seer and prophet 

 had to be an accurate weather prognosticator before any 

 reliance would have been placed on his magic. 



