Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/299

Rh example of it. It is to-day the religion of the Bantu tribes of Africa, and still prevails to some extent in Japan. But it is chiefly among the Chinese that this form of religion has reached its highest form of development. All changes in the customs of the country are resisted as a reflection upon the regulations established by their ancestors, for the infraction of which they will be severely punished. The greatest sin they can commit is to allow the graves of their ancestors to be disturbed for any cause whatsoever.

As men progress in their knowledge of the things about them, they come to see the defects in the forms of religion described above, and begin to turn their attention to more exalted powers. They cease to pay exclusive homage to the spirits that reside in the objects that they themselves have handled and can make or destroy, and begin to look up in reverential awe to the beings that manifest themselves on a vaster scale, and in a more consistent and impressive manner.

Thus arose what is usually called nature-worship, the most prominent form of which is the worship of the celestial bodies. It is probable that the division of the week into seven days came about from the dedication of one day to each of the gods manifesting himself through the seven greatest luminaries.

Naturally, in all except the torrid zone, the sun-god received the greatest homage. As the source of light and warmth, as the earth's great fructifying power, as the one constant ever-recurring factor in man's daily experience, it has always awakened the most powerful religious emotions, in the minds of rude as well as semi-civilized people. Among the ancient Phœnicians the sun was the center of their cultus. It was probably the leading feature of the religion of the ancient Persians. The same was also true of the Sabeans. The worship of Apollo, so popular among the Greeks, was in all probability sun-worship. The Egyptians gave the sun a high place in their system, and the ancient Peruvians paid it their chief honors. The Celts and the Teutons, as well as the East Indians, made much of it, and so do numerous tribes in Africa to-day. It is maintained by many writers that the North American Indians were always and chiefly sun-worshippers; that the sun was actually their Manitou, or Great Spirit.

In some lands the moon was fixed upon as the chief deity. Certain Australian tribes believe to-day that all things, including man, were created by the moon.

At all periods of the world's history the stars have received special homage. Among the early natives of Greenland and Australia the Milky Way was nothing less than the pathway of souls ascending to their home in the heavens. The auroras borealis and australis were actually in their opinion the dance of the gods across the firmament.

Another form of nature worship was the adoration of the fire-god.