ourse vary infinitely in different tribes, the figure
of the worker of magic is an essential feature of any general sketch
of early religion. He is often a person of great political
importance; being supposed to be in closer alliance than any one else
with spiritual beings, he has a power which is much dreaded, and
which even the chief cannot disregard.

Of Sacred Seasons there can be but few in the earliest human life,
when there is no fixed measure of time, nor any notion of regularity,
but all depends on the occurrence of need and of danger. As soon as
agriculture was engaged in, however, attention must have been fixed
on the recurrence of the seasons, and the measures of time afforded
by the moon must, at least, have been observed. The summer and the
winter solstice, the equinoxes, the new moons, these were to the
early cultivator epochs to be observed; and certain annual feasts are
found to have come into use in very early times, epochs of man's
simplest and earliest calendar, and occasions for tribal gatherings
and for such fixed religious observances as we have described. A
private religious emergency arising in the interval between two
feasts is dealt with by means of a vow; the help of the deity, that
is to say, is claimed at once, but the payment of the due
consideration for it on man's part is deferred till the time of
sacrifice comes round.[6]

[Footnote 6: Genesis xxviii. 20; Judges xi. 30; 2 Sam. xv. 8.]

Character of Early Religion.--We have now passed in review the
principal observances and usages of primitive religion; but before
concluding this chapter some remarks have to be made as to the
position religion held in the life of ancient times, and as to the
spirit and temper which it exhibited. In the first place, as we
remarked above, religion was in these times the most important branch
of the public service. Every uncommon occurrence had to be laid
before the god, and no important step could be taken without
consulting him; and it was a principal duty of the head of the state
to keep the god on good terms with the tribe, and to apply to him for
all the aid and protection the tribe required from him. In attending
to this, however, the chief was acting for his tribesmen; where there
was no chief these matters were not neglected, but were looked after
by common spontaneous action by the members of the tribe. The god was
their lord, their father, and they must always take him along with
them. This id