Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/76

Rh see the same spiritual truth. Thus, a savage Saint, living in a nation of Idolaters or Polytheists, worships the one true God, as Jesus of Nazareth has done. In a Christian land superstitious men may be found, who are as much Idolaters as Nebuchadnezzar or Jeroboam.

I. Fetichism denotes the worship of visible objects, such as beasts, birds, fish, insects, trees, mountains, the stars, the sun, the moon, the earth, the sea, and air, as types of the infinite Spirit. It is the worship of Nature. It includes many forms of religious observances that prevailed widely in ancient days, and still continue among savage tribes. It belongs to a period in the progress of the individual, or society, when civilization is low, the manners wild and barbarous, and the intellect acts in ignorance of the causes at work around it; when Man neither understands nature nor himself. Some writers suppose the human race started at first with a pure Theism; for the knowledge of truth, say they, must be older than the perception of error in this respect. It seems the sentiment of Man would lead him to the. Doubtless it would if the conditions of its highest action were perfectly fulfilled. But as this is not done in a state of ignorance and barbarism, therefore the religious sentiment mistakes its object, and sometimes worships the symbol more than the thing it stands for.

In this stage of growth, not only the common objects above enumerated, but gems, metals, stones that fell from heaven, images, carved bits of wood, stuffed skins of