iv.] RELIGIOUS STATE. 139 



Supreme Being ; but that they almost generally worship 

 directly or indirectly the spirits of departed human beings, 

 and this more from fear than love. 



, This interesting topic needs the less discus- 

 in the immor- sion, since it has been indirectly treated under 

 tality of the t ^ e ] ast head. Like the ancient Egyptians, 

 the modern Hindoo and the Jews of old, 

 these tribes hold a sort of doctrine of transmigration of 

 souls. It is a great step in advance towards a purer faith 

 that they are not materialists; their very fears and supersti- 

 tions are in the right direction. 



There is something peculiarly striking in the fact of 

 these African tribes being generally in precisely the same 

 state of mind as that in which the heathen of our Lord's 

 and the Apostles' day, were, in reference to this momentous 

 doctrine. When Jesus Christ brought life and immortality 

 to light through his Gospel, the great majority of the Jews 

 believed with him that their souls would live after death, 

 although with an imperfect metempsychosian notion. When 

 Paul preached at Athens, or at Corinth or Rome, the philo- 

 sophic Greek and practical Roman familiarly understood, 

 and implicitly believed in, the deathless destiny of the soul 

 after death. Or when St John, and other Evangelists 

 and Apostles, declared the same truths before the minds of 

 the subtile and imaginative Asiatics, like results followed; 

 the story was not new. In all ages and among all nations 

 such a belief has been more or less clearly held. The 

 universal assent to it among these newly-found tribes is only 

 an additional testimony to the impressive fact that the soul 

 feels and knows her own true instincts ; — that she craves 

 after that which is congenial with her own immortal nature; 

 like answering to like; — that she is conscious of her un- 

 fledged untested and untold but enormous powers ; — that 

 she longs to escape the evil and to realize the good ; — and 

 that she sees with unmistakeably true intuition now and then 



