The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-10-07

the terminating ideas of his crude life
found their birth. The daWning intel
lect of man was beginning to burst the
narrow confines of brute instinct; the
| first steps were taken, when that
dawning intelligence came face to face
with conditions such as they must of
necessity have found insurmountable.
Who was to tell them of the cause of
the suns rising and setting; of the
fading by day and twinkling by night
of the thousands of planetary gems in
heavens dome; of the moon that
glowed now full, now family upon
them? Who to tell them the cause of
the lightnings, the thunders, the SEEM
ing strife and warfare that nature
made visible to them on every hand ?
Who to tell them this, or telling, make
them comprehend conditions into
which they could not carry their con-
fined faculty of reason? What other
result was to be expected than that they
should attribute to higher power the
changing appearances OF nature
around them? And so believing, why
wonder that they gave form, and wor.
ship to these appearances J With the
vast and continually Changing pano-
rama of nature before them and which
they were unable to comprehend; with
their imagination fired by fear in
waking, by fretful fantacies during
their sleeping moments, why should
they try to fathom the intricacies of
natural conditions acting on predis-
posed supernaturally inclined minds u?
Thus we may, in glancing through the
pages of history, CLEAN from them the
fact that almost universally the reli-
gious instinct in the human race was a
natural result of the conditions of
nature, as viewed by an uninstructed
mind. Hence, nature worship may be
said to have been the first crude reli-
gious ideas which, by development
through centuries of instruction, has
blossOmed into that beautiful concep-
ton of present day religion.
At first every phase of mature may
have been deifed the pantheon of the
savage filled with a heterogeneous
assemblage of polytheistic images. AS
his knowledge of nature increased, his
gods warred with each other and
through their strife their number les
sened, and so on throughout mans
early progress, his religious instinct
was ever ready to bow to the seemingly
stronger and uncomprehended power
of nature. From the worship of the
elements, the seasons, and natural
phenomena, to that of the sun is but a
step. Yet each step taken increases
the living power and personality of the
deities adOred; each step adds fuel to
the instinct, since, while it increases
the immediate knowledge of nature, it
needs must place the ultimate knowl-
edge still further beyond the grasp of
the human mind.
1t were better that we pass over the
ideas of savage cruelty which were
engendered by the religious instinct in
early man. Their deities being of the
nature of human, since conceived by
humans, were subject to and influenced
by those forces influencing their origi-
nators; but being more powerful, their
friendship must be purchased in some
form either by gifts, or sacrifices, of
persons or life. This idea was respon-
sible for the cruelties practiced.
1t is this same idea which made the
ancient world, having fixed idea that
they had the most powerful duty as
their guide in war, or commerce, in re-
ligious or national affairs, to enthrone
such deity on pedestal around which
the nation bowed to earth in homage
on which their social life was hung.
But as the origin of the various races
into national life was produced from
varying causes, and these causes pro.
duced not one but many nations, so we
find that the pantheon of the different
nations held different list of deities,
whose functions and powers, however,
were practically the same-denoting
their common origin in prehistoric