in the higher sense of the word. But their character,
and especially the character of Varuna, it seems to me, is rather too
high to survive the competition of rival cults, such as that of the
popular hero Indra and the priests' darling Agni, which tend to
engross the interest of worshippers lay and cleric, and to blunt their
relish for more spiritual ideals. So Mitra and Varuna become stunted
in their growth; and at last comes the fatal time when they are
identified with the sky by day and night. This is the final blow. No
deity that is plainly limited to any one phase or form of nature in
India can be or become a great god; and speedily all their real
divinity fades away from Mitra and Varuna, and they shrivel into
insignificance.

Next we turn to a spirit of a very different sort, the Fire-god, Agni.
The word _agni_ is identical with the Latin _ignis_; it means "fire,"
and nothing else but fire, and this fact is quite sufficient to
prevent Agni from becoming a great god. The priests indeed do their
best, by fertile fancy and endless repetition of his praises, to lift
him to that rank; but even they cannot do it. From the days of the
earliest generations of men Fire was a spirit; and the household fire,
which cooks the food of the family and receives its simple oblations
of clarified butter, is a kindly genius of the home. But with all his
usefulness and elfish mystery Fire simply remains fire, and there's an
end of it, for the ordinary man. But the priests will not have it so.
The chief concern of their lives is with sacrifice, and their deepest
interest is in the spirit of the sacrificial fire. All the riches of
their imagination and their vocabulary are lavished upon him, his
forms and his activities. They have devoted to him about 200 hymns and
many occasional verses, in which they dwell with constant delight and
ingenious metaphor upon his splendour, his power, his birth from
wood, from the two firesticks, from trees of the forest, from stones,
or as lightning from the clouds, his kinship with the sun, his
dwelling in three abodes (viz. as a rule on earth, in the clouds as
lightning, and in the upper heavens as the sun), his place in the
homes of men as a holy guest, a friend and a kinsman, his protection
of worshippers against evil spirits and malignant sorcerers, and
especially his function of conveying the oblation poured into his
flames up to the gods. Thus they are led to represent him as the
divine Priest,