and sometimes the idol is treated as only an image of the god or gods believed in, and is not mistaken for the god itself. Unhappily it has more frequently been regarded as a god, and believed to hear prayer, to accept gifts, and have power to bless or curse. The materials out of which different races shape their gods show us what their ideas are. These may be mere bundles of grass or rudely daubed stones, or carved with the care and beauty displayed in the household idols of the East. If the god is believed in as allpowerful, a huge image will be built, to which will be given a score of arms and legs, the head of a lion, the feet of a stag, and the wings of a bird. But it would fill a much larger book than this were I to tell you how in every age different nations have made and worshipped idols and what they have been like. Very many years will yet pass away before even in civilized countries people will learn that the great God has neither shape nor parts, and can never be looked upon, "seeing," as the good apostle Paul told the Greeks,

"that He is Lord of heaven and earth, and dwelleth not in temples made with hands," and therefore is not "like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and man's device."

XXVIII. Nature-Worship.

We have now to leave the lifeless things in which poor savage man has found a god to hang round his neck or set up in his hut and learn a little about some of the living and moving things which are worshipped.

Some learned men think that the worship of serpents and trees was the earliest faith of mankind. Others have thought that the sun, moon, stars, and fire were first worshipped. But it seems more likely that in different parts of the world men had different gods, and would at first worship the things nearest to them till they knew enough about them to lessen fear, and would then bow before those greater powers whose mysteries are hidden still.

I. Water-Worship. The worship of water is

very wide-spread and easy to account for-for what seemed so full of life, and therefore, according to early man's reason, so full of spirits, as rivers, brooks, and waterfalls? To him it was the water-demon that made the river flow so fast as to be dangerous in crossing, and that curled the dreaded whirlpool in which life was sucked. When one river-god came to be afterwards believed in, as controlling every stream, making it to flow lazily along or to rush at torrentspeed, it was believed to be wrong to save any drowning person lest the river-god should be cheated of his prey.

Sacred springs, holy wells, abound everywhere to show how deep and lasting was water-worship. You have heard of sacred rivers, such as the Ganges, of which some beautiful stories are given in the sacred books of India, telling how it flows from the heavenly places to bless the earth and wash away all sin.

2. Tree-Worship. The worship of trees is also very common. The life that, locked up within them during the long winter, burst out in

leaf and flower and fruit, and seemed to moan or whisper as the breezes shook branch and leaf, was that not also the sign of an indwelling spirit?

So, far later in time than the early natureworshippers, the old Greeks thought when they peopled sea and stream, tree and hill, with beings whom they called nymphs, telling of the goddesses who dwelt in the water to bless the drinkers, and of those who were born and who died with the trees in which they lived. And you have perhaps heard that the priests of the ancient religion of this island held the oak-tree sacred and lived among its groves, as their name Druid, which comes from the Welsh word derw or the Greek drus, both meaning an oak, shows.

3. Animal-Worship. Besides the worship of trees and rivers and other like things seen to have life or motion, the worship of animals arose in very early times. The life in them was seen to be very different from that of the tree or river. The water swirled and foamed, the tree shook, the volcano hissed, but no eyes glistened

from them, no huge claws sprang forth to tear. And the brute seemed so like to man in many things, and withal was so much stronger, that it must have a soul greater than the soul of man.

As mastery over the brute was gained, the fear and worship of it died out here and there, but sacred animals play a great part in many religions. The kind of brute worshipped depended very much on the country in which man lived. In the far North he worshipped the bear and wolf, further South the lion and tiger and crocodile, and in very many parts of the world the serpent. So cunning and subtle seemed that long, writhing, brilliant-coloured thing, so deadly was its poison-fang, so fascinating the glitter of the eye that looked out from its hateful face, that for long centuries it was feared and became linked in the minds of men as the soul of that Evil which early worked sorrow and shame among them.

On this I cannot now dwell, but must go on to tell you that man's next step, rising from the worship of stones and brutes, was to believe in a class of great gods each ruling