263 
enforced by present divine favour and blessing, and by an 
everlasting reward. Their Indian kinsmen seem to have made 
religion the stay and the luxury of their life. So far as we 
can now see, they had fallen under the domination of an 
oppressive priesthood, but still they struggled after the free 
and friendly intercourse which their ancestors enjoyed, and 
which for many generations was embalmed in the hymns 
which they continued to sing when the experience they em- 
bodied was forgotten. But one thing is conspicuous through- 
out. Religion was the business of their lives. ‘he Chinese, 
from their first appearance as a distinct people, had clear con- 
ceptions of the existence and present dominion of the Creator, 
which they retain to this day, although their superstition has 
peopled the heavens and the earth with multitudes of sub- 
- ordinate or ministering spirits who fulfil His will, so that 
direct worship is now only paid to the Supreme Sovereign by 
the emperor on behalf of the whole empire represented in 
their solemn services. The Phoenicians surpassed their neigh- 
bours in the severity of their worship, offermg human sacrifices 
to appease the anger of God, which shows the strength of their 
conviction as to the reality of His existence and rule. 
We cannot conceive of a religion which does not suppose 
the dependence of the worshipper upon his God, and also of 
real intercourse between them; at any rate, so far as the 
offer of worship by man and the bestowment of benefits by 
God ; and in the ancient nations already mentioned, that God 
was the Creator, notwithstanding the grouping of subordinates 
around, Him in subsequent times. Nor can this conviction of 
the existence of a divine Creator and Ruler be ascribed to the 
infancy and consequent immaturity of these peoples. First, 
the definite precision of the doctrines forbids such a supposi- 
tion, and the mechanical, scientific, artistic, and social pro- 
ficiency of these nations at the time these precise and sharply- 
cut decisions were commonly held, shows that they were not 
lucky guesses of the ignorant, but the permanent opimions of 
thoughtful men. 
M. Le Page Renouf, in the Hibbert Lecture of 1879, 
quotes the late M. Hmanuel Rougé’s mature judgment con- 
cerning Egypt, and declares that no scholar is better entitled 
to be heard on this subject. ‘‘ No one has called in question 
the fundamental meaning of the principal passages by the 
help of which we are able to establish what ancient Hgypt has 
taught concerning God, the world, and man. I say (od, not 
the gods. The first characteristic is the unity most ener- 
getically expressed,—God, one, sole, and only,—not others 
with Him. He is the only being living in truth: ‘Thou art 
