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20  and all the members of their households; and that its influence not only did not defend, but was usually hostile to others. Those others had in like manner their own gods, who naturally favoured and protected them, as household gods ought to do. Every aggregation of men, whether domestic or passing beyond that limit, had its tutelary spirit; and this spirit was the only known means of securing the permanency of the aggregation. The House Father of old cared little whether the universe had one author or many authors. His practical duty, his hopes and fears, centered upon his own hearth. Profoundly religious, indeed, he was; but his religion assumed a different form from that with which we are familiar. In its origin, its objects, and its results, it was entirely domestic.

Thus, in place of the uniform government of an impartial Creator, whose sun shines and whose rain falls alike upon the unjust and the just, the world presented itself to the archaic mind as governed by a vast variety of gods, acting each on his own principles, and each seeking the exclusive interest of his worshippers. Every assemblage of men had their own god, and regarded that god as their exclusive property. If they prospered, he prospered; if they were unfortunate, his worship suffered with them; if they were conquered, he was conquered too. They repudiated any obligation to any other deity. They resented any worship of him by any other persons. They even contemplated the possibility that he might be stolen from them or induced to abandon them. As they owed to him true and faithful allegiance, so they expected from him protection and support. If he was negligent or impotent, if he was unwilling or unable to help them in the time of need, they regarded the contract as dissolved, and renounced their allegiance to so useless a protector.