nkers devote themselves to its culture in the race!

We may distinctly trace the intuitive strivings of the human spirit for
_unity_ even in the theology of nations without revelation. In one of
the ancient fragments of Greek poetry known as Orphic Hymns, we find
them thus articulated:

'Jupiter is the First and Last; Jupiter is man and immortal
Virgin; Jupiter is the base of Earth and Heaven; Jupiter is the
living breath of all beings; Jupiter is the source of Fire; the
root of the Sea; Jupiter is the Sun and Moon; Jupiter is King
of the universe; He created all things; He is a Living Force; a
God; the Heart of all that is;--a supernal Body which embraces
all bodies, fire, water, earth, air, night, day, with Metis the
first Generatrix, and Love, full of magic. All that is, is
contained in the immense Body of Jupiter.'

The reader will not fail to observe how much this Greek hymn resembles
in its spirit the extract we have already given him from the Vedas; how
closely it coincides with the transcendental philosophy of the Hindoos.

But the idea of God, vague and indeterminate apart from revelation, soon
lost its _pantheistic_ unity in the wildest _polytheistic_ variety. The
primitive idea of unity, passing through the distorting prism of the
fallen and corrupt human imagination, was divided, decomposed, clothed
in a thousand colors and forms to allure and satisfy the senses. Thus
there was no part of nature without its appropriate god, invested with
supreme power over the class of being subjected to its care. No one had
ever seen any one of these gods, but the people had no doubt of their
existence. Names in close accordance with their separate functions were
given them; these names became symbols destined to represent the
different active principles of the physical world.

Thus in their literary and sacred language they substituted the names of
Jupiter, Hyades, Hamadryads, Apollo, for those of Air, Fountains,
Forests, and Sun. Nature almost disappeared under this traditionary
language, which, giving play to the lighter fancy, chilled the
imagination, and singularly limited the view. Indeed, it so amused and
allured the fancy by its diversity that the mind scarcely cared to rise
from this fantastic and grotesque world to seek the sublime principles
of Infinity, of Unity. If the ancients had regarded nature as a vast
system of signs designed to manifest the ideas of the Gr