must be looked on with caution, and sifted with care. An intense zeal-without which a missionary would be nothing-so far from implying an impartial judgment in all moral and religious matters, not seldom renders such a judgment impossible. We may say generally, indeed, that a zealous Christian missionary is not the man fully to appreciate the amount of genuine theistic piety that may lie hidden and half choked beneath the grotesque mummeries and disgusting practices that are all that certain low types of humanity have to show for religion. It is not at all uncommon, even among ourselves, to hear persons and parties branded as atheistical, only because the individuals who so stigmatize them have not been able, and perhaps are not in the least willing, to appreciate the sort of theism which they profess. If Spinoza has been called an atheist, though he did not deny God, but rather denied the world, and was therefore, as Hegel says, more properly styled an acosmist; how much more may many savage tribes have been termed atheistical by ignorant and unthinking missionaries who failed to make the very obvious distinction between worshipping gods who are no gods, and worshipping no god at all? With this caution, therefore, let us hear what the most intelligent of the

missionaries have to say; and in such a case there are few men who have a better right to be called into court than the noble apostle of South Africa, Dr. Moffat. Here is a well-known passage about the African Bushmen :-"Hard is the Bushman's lot-friendless, forsaken, an outcast from the world; greatly preferring the company of the beasts of prey to that of civilised man. His gorah* soothes some solitary hours, although its sounds are often responded to by the lion's roar or the hyena's howl. He knows no God, knows nothing of eternity, yet dreads death, and has no shrine at which to leave his care and sorrows. We can scarcely conceive of human beings descending lower in the scale of ignorance and vice, while yet there can be no question that they are children of one common parent with ourselves." And to the same effect is the distinct testimony of Dr. Monat in reference to the Andaman islanders :-"They have no conception of a Supreme Being. They have never risen from the effects they see around them, even to the

* "The gorah is an instrument something like the bow of a violin-rather more curved-along which is stretched a catgut, to which is attached a small piece of quill. The player takes the quill in his mouth, and by strong inspirations and respirations produces a few soft notes in the vibrations of the catgut."

"Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa," thirtieth thousand, p. 15.

most imperfect notion of a cause. They have never ascended in thought from the works to a Creator, or even to many Creators—that is to say, Polytheism.”* And one of the most eminent investigators into the primitive condition of man has the following interesting passage:-"The opinion that religion is general and universal has been entertained by many high authorities. Yet it is opposed to the evidence of numerous trustworthy observers. Sailors, traders, and philosophers, Roman Catholic priests and Protestant missionaries, in ancient and in modern times, in every part of the globe, have concurred in stating that there are races of men altogether devoid of religion. The case is the stronger because in several instances the fact has greatly surprised him who records it, and has been entirely in opposition to all his preconceived views. On the other hand, it must be confessed that in some cases travellers denied the existence of religion merely because the tenets were unlike ours. The question as to the general existence of religion among men is indeed to a great extent a matter of definition. If the mere sensation of fear, and the recognition that there are probably other beings more powerful than one's self, are

*"Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders." By Frederick T. Monat, M.D., F.R.C.S. London, 1863. P. 303.

race.

sufficient alone to constitute a religion, then we must, I think, admit that religion is general to the human But when a child dreads the darkness, or shrinks from a lightless room, we never regard that as an evidence of religion. Moreover, if this definition be adopted, we cannot longer regard religion as peculiar to man. We must admit that the feeling of a dog or a horse towards his master is of the same character; and the baying of a dog to the moon is as much an act of worship as some ceremonies which have been so described by travellers.” *

But strong as these testimonies appear, it is extremely doubtful how far they would satisfy an impartial jury impanelled to try the point we are now discussing. Certainly if anthropological questions of this kind are to be decided on the same strictness of detailed testimony that pecuniary cases are decided in our law courts, the three testimonies here given, notwithstanding the weight justly attributable to the words of the writers, would require to be submitted to the most sifting cross-examination before they could be accepted as elements in the formation of any conclusive verdict on the subject. And accordingly we find that another writer of

* 66

Origin of Civilisation and Primitive Condition of Man." By Sir T. Lubbock. Pp. 138, 139.

equal authority, after quoting various testimonies in favour of the existence of atheistic races, nevertheless declares his opinion that no evidence sufficiently detailed and searching has been brought forward, such as might enable a cautious thinker to assert with confidence that there exists anywhere a race of human beings absolutely without religion of any kind.

And our great African explorer, Livingstone, talking of some of the most degraded tribes of the Africans with whom he came into connection, says, "There is no necessity for beginning to tell the most degraded of these people (the Bechuanas) of the existence of a God, or of the future state, the facts being universally admitted. Everything that cannot be accounted for by common causes is ascribed to the Deity-as creation, sudden death, &c. How curiously God made these things!' is a common expression, as is 'He was not killed by disease, he was killed by God.' And, while speaking of the departed—though there is nought in the physical appearance of the dead to justify the expression they say, 'He has gone to the gods,' the phrase being identical with abiit ad patres.” †

This testimony is sufficiently strong, but of course * Tylor, "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 379.

"Livingstone's Missionary Travels," chap. viii. p. 158.