gnition of some relation to, and consciousness of dependence
upon, a _Supreme Being_. This general conception of religion underlies
all the specific forms of religion which have appeared in the world,
whether heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian.

That a religious destination appertains to man as man, whether he has
been raised to a full religious consciousness, or is simply considered
as capable of being so raised, can not be denied. In all ages man has
revealed an instinctive tendency, or natural aptitude for religion, and
he has developed feelings and emotions which have always characterized
him as a religious being. Religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed
among all nations, and have exerted a powerful influence on the entire
course of human history. Religious worship, addressed to a Supreme Being
believed to control the destiny of man, has been coeval and coextensive
with the race. Every nation has had its mythology, and each mythologic
system has been simply an effort of humanity to realize and embody in
some visible form the relations in which it feels itself to be connected
with an external, overshadowing, and all-controlling Power and Presence.
The voice of all ancient, and all contemporaneous history, clearly
attests that the _religious principle_ is deeply seated in the nature of
man; and that it has occupied the thought, and stirred the feelings of
every rational man, in every age. It has interwoven itself with the
entire framework of human society, and ramified into all the relations
of human life. By its agency, nations have been revolutionized, and
empires have been overthrown; and it has formed a mighty element in all
the changes which have marked the history of man.

This universality of religious sentiment and religious worship must be
conceded as a fact of human nature, and, as a universal fact, it demands
an explanation. Every event must have a cause. Every phenomenon must
have its ground, and reason, and law. The facts of religious history,
the past and present religious phenomena of the world can be no
exception to this fundamental principle; they press their imperious
demand to be studied and explained, as much as the phenomena of the
material or the events of the moral world. The phenomena of religion,
being universally revealed wherever man is found, must be grounded in
some universal principle, on some original law, which is connate with,
and natural to man. At any rate, there must be