The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-01-31
HOW RELIGION BEGAN,
AND WHAT It MEANS
William ThurStOn Brown Traces
Origin Back to Time of
Primitive Man.
The Rev. William Thurston Brown,

The Rev. William Thurston Brown,
pastor of the Unitarian church,
preached sermon Sunday morning on
How Religion Began and What II
Meant and Mcans' Ho took for his
text Prof. Henry Drummond s dcclara.
ton. . Evolution involves not SO much
change of opinion, as n change in
man S whole view of the world and
life. y In part the speaker said;
If we would picture TO ourselves the
nesinni4s OF religion on this earth. we
must place ourselves in Imagination III
the midst OF the dawnIng time OF human
reason and understand that religion arose
solely out OF the living experience of
those primitive animal human ancestors
oil our race. Instead OF religion begin
ming in a garden, 1t began In jungle.
Instead OF thinking OF n God walking in
the garden in the cool OF the day and
talking Familiarity with man, we must
think OF n time when 10 thought OF God
existed at all when any such conception
would have been impossible. Instead OF
parents were simply face 10 face with the
world they lived in. and what VIC call re-
llEion grew out OF two things: first and
chiefly, the effort 10 understand the mean-
Ing OF the world they lived in: and sec
ond the effort 10 establish relationship
with the unseen powers which they be-
licvcd To be the source of various things
which they saw or experienced. In 4
word. the earliest recollection of what he
saw or heard or experienced. He saw
the sun rise and set. lie saw the clouds
move across the sky. lie saw the rain,
heard the thunder. and learned the results
OF tho lightning He noticed the running
streams, the growing OF vegetation. the
blowing Of the wind. the scent OF flow
crs and blossoms. and all the natural phe-
nomena OF the changing seasons In his
dreams he seemed TO sec by his side
the forms of friends whom. when he
awokc, he knew TO be long way off.
Death came and took away those he loved.
Again in his dreams he saw the forms OF
these loved ones. How natural that he
should come 70 associate with all he saw
an unseen, invisible form or spirit and TO
believe that such an unseen form or spirit
is in every man and every thing II
was natural and inevitable that he should
create the universe In the image of his
own thought-and that is what he did.
That WAS all he could do And lie pcopled
the powers that helped and the powers
that harmed, His next step in the maxi
ing OF a religion Was To try TO establish
relationship for himself with these un
seen and unknown powers This he did
by means Of offcrlngs-of gratitude 10 the
ono, OF eNpiation to the other,
one OF the most interesting and curious
things in primitive religions is the fact.
as stated by Mr.. Tylor. the great anthro
pologist that hell was absolutely unknown
TO tho savage mind II Is well known
small fraction OF the diseases which civil
izalion has brought. In other words. civ
ilization has given The human race an
abundance OF diseases and--hcll.
The thing best worth knowing is that
religion had its beginning In mans at
tempt TO understand the world in which
he lived-and IL has never ceased to he
that. That Is what religion Is today. The
difference between superstition and rcliS
ion is this: superstition is today the ac-
ceptancc OF the crude eucsseS Of ancient
ignorance 10 the meaning OF the world
and of ones l:fe, while religion Is, now
as ever. mans attempt with all the light
at his command TO know the meaning of
the world and the function of his own life
in il.
The vital thing in religion. however, is
not in the conception "A man has for that
will change. His conception is conditioned
sense OF need and the desire 10 ind and
fulfill ones lfc-functon in tho world,
That is the universal thing in religion.
But this sense of need Is all the while
changing. and mans thought of higher
power is bound also To change. What We
name this higher power Is unmportant,
\ thousand different names have been
used. Every race and century, every tribe
and nation has had different name.
is the important matter. And there are
convincing reasons for believing that just
as those first human beings created the
whole external world in the image OF
their own thoughts, Just as every races
and every individuals deity UP to date
has been created in the image of man,
so IL must be in man, and most of all in
human society, in collective man. that
mon will ultimately discover that high
or power. the search for which has been
the chief meaning OF religion.