into the gulf that yawns wide and deep between the Ideal and the Actual, before the successful man comes in the fulness of time, at God's command, to lead men into the promised land, reaping what they did not sow. These men have risen up in all countries and every time. In the rudest ages as in the most refined, they look through the glass of Nature, seeing clearly the invisible things of God, and by the things that are made and the feelings felt, understanding his eternal power and Godhead. They adored Him as the Spirit who dwells in the sun, looks through the stars, speaks in the wind, controls the world, is chief of all powers, animal, material, spiritual, and Father of all men—their dear and blessed God. In his light they loved to live, nor feared to die.
There is a great advance from the Fetichism of the
Canaanite to the Theism of Moses; from the rude conceptions
of the New Zealander to the refined notions of an
enlightened Christian. Ages of progress and revolution
seem to separate them, so different is their theology. Yet
the Religion of each is the same, distinguished only by
the more and less. The change from one of these three
religious types to the other is slow; but attended with
tumult, war, and suffering. In the ancient civilized
nations, little is known of their passage from Fetichism to
Polytheism. It took place at an early age of the world,
before written documents were common. We have, therefore,
no records to verify this passage in the history of the
Greeks, Egyptians, or Hebrews. Yet in the earliest periods
of each of these nations we find monuments which show
that Fetichism was not far off, and furnish a lingering but
imperfect evidence of the fierce struggle which had gone
on. The wrecks of Fetichism strew the shores of Greece
and Egypt. Judea furnishes us with some familiar
examples.[1]
- ↑ The legendary character of the Pentateuch renders it unsafe to depend entirely on its historical statements. Many passages seem to have been originally designed, or at least retouched, by some one who sought to enhance the difference between Moses and the people. Still, the “general drift” of the tradition is not to be mistaken, and can scarcely be wrong. The testimony of the prophets respecting the early state of the nation is more valuable than that of the Pentateuch itself. See De Wette, Introduction to the O. T., tr. by Theo. Parker, Boston, 1843, Vol. II. passim. See too, Ewald, Geschichte des Volks Israel, Vol I., Gött., 1843.
