ground in the history of all the religions of the Aryan race,
which was missed indeed by every careful observer, but which formerly
could be supplied by guess-work only. How the Persians came to worship
Ormuzd, how the Buddhists came to protest against temples and
sacrifices, how Zeus and the Olympian gods came to be what they are in
the mind of Homer, or how such beings as Jupiter and Mars came to be
worshipped by the Italian peasant:--all these questions, which used to
yield material for endless and baseless speculations, can now be
answered by a simple reference to the hymns of the Veda. The religion
of the Veda is not the source of all the other religions of the Aryan
world, nor is Sanskrit the mother of all the Aryan languages.
Sanskrit, as compared to Greek and Latin, is an elder sister, not a
parent: Sanskrit is the earliest deposit of Aryan speech, as the Veda
is the earliest deposit of Aryan faith. But the religion and incipient
mythology of the Veda possess the same simplicity and transparency
which distinguish the grammar of Sanskrit from Greek, Latin, or German
grammar. We can watch in the Veda ideas and their names growing, which
in Persia, Greece, and Rome we meet with only as full-grown or as fast
decaying. We get one step nearer to that distant source of religious
thought and language which has fed the different national streams of
Persia, Greece, Rome, and Germany; and we begin to see clearly, what
ought never to have been doubted, that there is no religion without
God, or, as St. Augustine expressed, that 'there is no false religion
which does not contain some elements of truth.'

I do not wish by what I have said to raise any exaggerated
expectations as to the worth of these ancient hymns of the Veda, and
the character of that religion which they indicate rather than fully
describe. The historical importance of the Veda can hardly be
exaggerated, but its intrinsic merit, and particularly the beauty or
elevation of its sentiments, have by many been rated far too high.
Large numbers of the Vedic hymns are childish in the extreme: tedious,
low, common-place. The gods are constantly invoked to protect their
worshippers, to grant them food, large flocks, large families, and a
long life; for all which benefits they are to be rewarded by the
praises and sacrifices offered day after day, or at certain seasons of
the year. But hidden in this rubbish there are precious stones. Only
in order to appreciate them j