The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-11-26

In a former article there was pre-
sented brief statement of the leading
facts of chronological science as modified
by recent pathological researches and dis
coveries. We have seen that our Ian
guage, our philosophy, aud most of the
characteristic traits of our civilization
have come to us from Aryan sources,
and that the IDdo-European man has
for twenty-five hundred years held a
leading place in the onward movement
Of humanity. While our faith and our
religion have come to US mainly from
Semitic sources, modified greatly, in
deed, by the social and political changes
Of time, but still clearly traceable
through every stage of their historical
development, Christianity, springing
out of Judaism and coming down to us
through the political medium of the
Roman Empire, owes its development
as much to the extraordinary fortune of
political opportunity as 10 the great in
herent value of its own leading doc
Lrines. 1t is not an exclusive religion,
but one of the great religions of the
world. Race development, as well as
political fortune, has given it large op-
portunity. It's progress has thus de-
pended on a great variety of circum-
stances, which the student OF history is
able to follow from their origin to the
present time.
Comparative Theology has risen
during few years past to the rank of a
science. Man is everywhere and in all
ages a religious being. The tendency
to worship some superhuman power is
universal. Until recently, Christian
writers universally assumed that the
Jewish and Christian religions were re-
vealed, while all others were invented.
All religions except Christianity were
held to be false and debasing supersti-
tiOns, and were given up to unmitigated
reprobation. But thought has latterly
taken a more just and philosophic turn.
All religions are now perceived to have
a common origin in the nature of man.
Their development proceeds with his
development. Differences of religion
are perceived to have grown mainly out
of differences of situation and of ethnic
character. Every great religious sys-
tenn, whether Christianity, Brahmanism
or Islam, comes from mans longing
after the infinite, and satisfies hunger
f,f tho hnraan heart Without dfsno
aging Christianity, we are learning to
do justice to other religions. 1t has
been well said that all the religions of
the earth are providential, and all tend
to benefit mankind.
The question is now generally asked:
"Can it be that God has left himself
without a witness in the world, except
among the Hebrews in ancient times,
and the Christians in modern times ?"
"This narrow creed" says James Free
man Clarke, in his "Ten Great Relig-
IONS" "excludes God from any COM
munion with the great majority of hu-
man beings. The Father of the human
race is represented as selecting few OF
his children to keep near himself, and
as leaving the rest to perish in ignor-
ance and error" Nor is this because
they have gone astray of their own ac-
cord; for they are just in the condition
their Creator placed them. Even hu-
man reason and human sense of JUS
tiee revolts from this position and its
consequences. Can it be the divine
plan?
The human mind, in the early ages
struggled slowly and painfully toward
the idea of solitary and almighty God
Even among the Semitic nations
mOnotheism was a slow growth. Re.
ligion took the form of personation anC
deification of the forces of nature; 6
process Of development still witnessed
among uncultivated peoples Throughout
the world. Gods were very numerous
even the people of Israel, spite of the
continual efforts of their leaders anC
law-givers, relspsed frequently into the
worship of many gods. The conception
of God among all peoples in an early
stage of culture is essentially anthro
POmorphitic; that is to say, their idea
tend to invest God with the form anC
the attributes of man. Hence, in tn,
first books of the Old Testament, a
well as in other primitive writings, hu
man actions and human passions ar,
ascribed to the Supreme Being. In th,
HOmeric writings, a similar line O
thought is most strikingly displayed
Lying in remote background, far be
yOnd the era Of the Homeric gods ant
the thogomy Of Hesiod, is the Hindu
system, as seen in the Vedic hymns
But in all these compositions there i
the idea of one Supreme God, more o
less clearly developed, surrounded b.
secondary deities. Monotheism wa
not special revelation to the Semiti
race, but was an idea of slow growth il
primitive times, which, however, re
eeived its fullest development amonI
the descendants of Abraham.
Max Muller says: ''There has been n,
entirely new religion since the begin
ming Of the world. The elements ant
roots of religion are as far back as W
can trace the history of man; and tb