he facts; nor is there
any evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as
the Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by
a living voice. The substance of this elementary religion--the existence
of God the Rewarder of them that seek Him--is naturally suggested to the
simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and
supplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be
borne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in
solitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language
can develop aright. Further we may allow that as Nature or God provides
for society, and therefore for individuals, by an equal distribution of
gifts and talents, giving some to be politicians, others poets, others
philosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some what might be called
natural religious genius or talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit
of the community. Thus whatever be true of the individual savage, we
cannot well suppose that any tribe or people, taken collectively, should
fail to draw the fundamental truths of religion from the data of
conscience and nature. In this sense no doubt they would become
traditional--the common property of all--so that the innate facility of
each individual mind in regard to them would be stimulated and
supplemented by suggestion from without.

How far God can be said actually to "speak" to the soul through
conscience or through Nature so as to make faith, in the strict sense of
reliance on the word of another, possible, is for theologians to
discuss. If besides expressing these truths in creation or in
conscience, He also expresses in some way His intention to reveal them
to the particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In what way, or
innumerable ways He makes His voice heard in every human heart day by
day, and causes general truths to be brought near and recognized and
received as a particular message, each can answer best for himself.

But undoubtedly the results of comparative religion are, so far, almost
entirely favourable to the doctrine of God's all-saving will; and in
many other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even where, for
example, in the question of the origin and meaning of sacrifice, they
seem to necessitate a modification of the somewhat elaborate _a priori_
definition, popular in some modern schools (though not in them all), yet
that modification is altogether fa