Page:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature.djvu/357

Rh one great merit of the worshiper; and the sacrifices and servilities by which savage tribesmen have from time immemorial exhibited their faithfulness to chieftains are now outbid in favor of the deity. Vocabularies are exhausted and languages altered in the attempt to praise him enough; death is looked on as gain if it attract his grateful notice; and the personal attitude of being his devotee becomes what one might almost call a new and exalted kind of professional specialty within the tribe. The legends that gather round the lives of holy persons are fruits of this impulse to celebrate and glorify. The Buddha and Mohammed and their companions and many Christian saints are incrusted with a heavy jewelry