enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this
protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick
wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the
oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared
the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety.

By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to
morality. The religious sense is by no means the voice of conscience.
The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins,
but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not
counting it crime.[291-1] Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved
and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood
was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a
right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human
sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in
higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida,
and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own
children at the behest of a priest.[291-2] The philosophical moralist,
contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one
consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under
an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the
essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which
sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the
rendering up of our will to the will of God.[291-3] But sacrifice, when
not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a
rendering up, but a _substitution_ of our will for God's will. A deity
is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly,
we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we
punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such
self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come.
Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature's
laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient
philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of
their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that "fear is the father
of religion, love her late-born daughter;"[292-1] that "the first form
of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and
that "no natural religion appears to ha