156 
language, a constant attempt to strip words of their coarse 
covering, and fit them by main force for the purposes of 
abstract thought. But there is, on the other side, a constant 
relapse from the spiritual into the material, and, strange to 
say, a predilection for the material sense instead of the 
spiritual. This action and reaction has been going on in the 
language of religion from the earliest times, and is at work 
even now.” ‘The learned philologist dwells upon the pheno- 
mena of language with a persistency that reminds one of the 
suggestion that “there is nothing like leather.” But the 
fact stated as to language indicates a far deeper one, a psycho- 
logical tendency which had been noticed long before, even by 
Saul of Tarsus.* Nearly the same idea lay at the root of 
Plato’s comparison of the mind of man to a chariot with two 
horses, one tending upwards to the skies, the other grovelling 
earthward, so that the charioteer can only obtain momentary 
glimpses of the spiritual realities above the clouds, losing sight 
of them speedily among the mists of earth. It is, however, 
interesting to find the tendency detected in the psychological 
field by the spiritual Apostle and the intellectual philosopher 
confirmed and illustrated in the regions of philology and 
history. For this “ predilection for the material instead of 
the spiritual”? may be traced as one of the principles of the 
deterioration of religions in almost all the nations of the world. 
However we may account for it, the deterioration is a general 
fact, and religions do tend everywhere, not to rise to a higher 
level of intellectual, moral, and spiritual perfection, but to 
sink downwards into superstition ever more immoral and 
more stupid. It were easy to illustrate this from the history 
of all the ages. 
14, A recent example may be cited. There is in Bengal a 
sect called Karttaé Bhajas, “ Worshippers of the Creator.” The 
designation is a grand one, and indicates a doctrine in many 
respects originally noble. It took its rise early in the present 
century, from a man who had probably come under the in- 
fluence of Christian missionary teaching. At the present 
time the practices of the sect are marked by no little supersti- 
tion, and, if report speaks true, by the grossest immorality. 
The ‘body of the sect has been thought to furnish ground in 
some degree prepared for missionary effort, but converts from 
its ranks have often brought with them habits of thought and 
conduct which have created no little scandal. Just the same 
tendency to degenerate is found in all the thousand-and-one 
* Gal. v.17. 
