our permission to approach
it in a temper differing from that in which it is frequently treated.
We cannot justly interpret the religion of any people, unless we are
prepared to admit that we ourselves, as well as they, are liable to
error in matters of faith; and that the convictions of others, however
singular, may in some points have been well founded, while our own,
however reasonable, may be in some particulars mistaken. You must
forgive me, therefore, for not always distinctively calling the creeds
of the past "superstition," and the creeds of the present day "religion;"
as well as for assuming that a faith now confessed may sometimes be
superficial, and that a faith long forgotten may once have been sincere.
It is the task of the Divine to condemn the errors of antiquity, and of
the philologists to account for them; I will only pray you to read, with
patience, and human sympathy, the thoughts of men who lived without blame
in a darkness they could not dispel; and to remember that, whatever
charge of folly may justly attach to the saying, "There is no God," the
folly is prouder, deeper, and less pardonable, in saying, "There is no
God but for me."

2. A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached
to it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such
a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being
extraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural. Thus if I
tell you that Hercules killed a water-serpent in the lake of Lerna, and
if I mean, and you understand, nothing more than that fact, the story,
whether true or false, is not a myth. But if by telling you this, I mean
that Hercules purified the stagnation of many streams from deadly
miasmata, my story, however simple, is a true myth; only, as, if I leftit
in that simplicity, you would probably look for nothing beyond, it will
be wise in me to surprise your attention by adding some singular
circumstance; for instance, that the water-snake had several heads, which
revived as fast as they were killed, and which poisoned even the foot
that trod upon them as they slept. And in proportion to the fulness of
intended meaning I shall probably multiply and refine upon these
improbabilities; as, suppose, if, instead of desiring only to tell you
that Hercules purified a marsh, I wished you to understand that he
contended with the venom and vapor of envy and evil ambition, whether in
other men's souls