Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/67

Rh attack upon any religion. Let us learn a lesson from the Indians, not only in tolerance but in politeness. One of the early Jesuit missionaries in Canada recounts how he pleased a Huron chief by his discourse upon the cosmology set forth in the Scriptures, and felt that he had secured a convert until the chief, thanking him for his information, added, "Now you have told me how your world was made, I will tell you how my world was made"; and proceeded to give the now familiar story of the woman falling from the sky, and the turtle. He was willing that the priest should retain his belief, with which his own, in his opinion, did not conflict. Dr. Franklin tells of a Susquehannock who, after a similar lecture from a Swedish missionary, was answered in the same manner; but this missionary became angry and interrupted the Indian, whereupon the latter solemnly rebuked him with pity: "I have listened politely to what you told me; if you had been properly brought up, you would have believed me as I believed you."

Religion, as accurately defined, embraces only the perficient relations between divinity and man, and the mode in which such relations operate. Popularly it includes cosmology and theology. For present convenience the broad subject may be divided into Religious Opinions and Religious Practices.

In this comparison, all religious views personally entertained must be laid aside and the study conducted strictly within the scope of anthropology. Modern thinkers adopt the rule not to use a miraculous factor when unnecessary. Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus. It is now regarded as puerile to explain all puzzling phenomena, as was done for ages—

 When solved complete was any portent odd By one more story or another god."

This attitude, however, is still not universal. When experience of observed facts and of the orderly working of the forces of nature are not sufficient for explanation, some minds yet resort to the miraculous. Others humbly confess ignorance and work for light. This light when gained is real and lasting, not the delusive hues of cloud-region, varying with each instant and to each observer's eye, and soon resolving into the same old mists and fogs from which escape was sought.

In their explanation of phenomena, all the peoples of the world have resorted to revelations. Every myth or early teaching is directly or indirectly through revelation; but as the revelation is on both sides of the equation, it can be eliminated from any parallel such as is now presented.

A cardinal of more than titular eminence was rash when, admitting that the doctrine of the devil and his command of demons was first learned by the Israelites during the Babylonian