l worship is one of the most
momentous in the whole history of religion. The nature of the change
involved in it may be summed up as follows.

1. Men obtain a Greater God than they had before. Formerly a man
believed in the god of his tribe, one deity among many, as his tribe
was one among many, each having its own god; but now he comes to know
a god who is higher than the other tribal gods, as the king whom the
tribes have united to obey is greater than the tribal chiefs. The god
stands at a greater distance than before from the worshipper;
familiarity is lessened, and religion becomes capable of a deeper
reverence and adoration. Although the worship of the tribal god is
still kept up, yet if the new-born national consciousness is strong,
the national form of religion rather than the tribal will determine
the religious sentiment of the individual.

2. New Social Bond.--The nature of the social force exerted by
religion is altogether changed. In tribal religion the tie of the
worshippers both to their god and to each other is that of blood; the
god is their common lineal ancestor, whose blood is in the veins of
all the tribesmen. The social bond supplied by such a religion is
limited to the members of the tribe; a man's fellow-tribesmen are his
brothers, but all other men are his enemies; with them he is at war
as his god is. Social duty is a matter of blood relationship, and
extends only to the kindred. When a national religion is arrived at,
a social obligation of a new kind will evidently make its appearance.
The national god is related by blood to only one of the tribes
composing the nation; the bond between him and the other tribes must
be of another nature. He has conquered their gods or they have
voluntarily accepted him as their chief god; in any case it is not
the tie of blood that binds them to him, but some more ideal tie,
like that between a king and his subjects, or between a patron and
his clients. And they now have a religious connection also with men
who are not their kindred. The national worship is inconsistent with
the gross materialism of the system of kinship, and places instead of
it the belief in a god further above the world, and therefore more
spiritual, and obligations to men which, as they are not derived from
a common blood, are somewhat more purely moral.

3. A Better God.--The new god of the nation as he is higher above the
world is a being of higher and better character. He belongs to a