of one god at a time. The child-world does with the objects of its religion what the child-life does with the objects of its play-selects that which suits it best, and keeps it until it is tired of it. In this religious stage, therefore, there is an element both of Polytheism and of Monotheism which is yet different from either. I do not indeed think it possible that Polytheism as an actual experience ever existed. I do not believe that the human mind at any stage of its being is really capable of fixing its attention on more than one thing at a time. I say really; apparently it is the reverse. The transitions of human thought are so rapid, and the combinations of human thought are so multiform, that one is apt to be deceived. It often seems as if the mind were contemplating two objects at once, when in reality it is fixed upon a single object. It is quite possible, for instance, to have in view at one moment the different parts of a house. Yet in this case the object of contemplation is really one; the house constitutes a single image, and all its different parts are comprehended at a glance as things which make up this image. So is it, I believe, with the systems called Polytheism. There have been times when men have seemed to bow down before a multitude of gods, and to recognise the sovereignty of many heavenly rulers. Yet, closely looked at, the rule of the many will be found to melt into the government of the one

This so-called polytheism is in reality the recognition of one vast building-a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The apparent diversity in the objects of worship is really nothing more than the diversity subsisting between the different parts of an earthly dwelling. Looked at singly, each part has a function of its own, and each part may be described in distinction from the others. But, viewed in connection with the whole, there is no plurality; there is in truth one structure and only one, and all the varieties in the formation of the separate angles are lost and overshadowed in the unity of the completed building.

I hold, then, that as a matter of fact Polytheism is impossible; that there never really existed or could exist a time in which the mind of man had its attention simultaneously fixed upon two objects of worship. The nearest approach to the worship of more gods than one is the stage called Henotheism, in which there is indeed recognised a plurality of heavenly objects, but in which the place of honour is occupied by each in turn. Even here, there is no real plurality. Each ruler may have a short reign, but, while it lasts, his reign is absolute. The attention of the worshipper is at no time fixed upon more than one god, and is at all times dominated by one. If now it be asked, What is that point of transition in which the one object of worship

becomes a permanent object? I answer, it will be found at that stage in which the mind's attraction passes from a sensuous admiration into a principle of love. What is the difference between a child's devotion to its toy and a man's devotion to his friend; why is the one so much more short-lived than the other? The reason lies in the fact that the bond of attraction is in each case fastened to a different object. The child is attached to his toy through a cord that communicates with the eye; the man is attached to his friend through a bond that communicates with the heart. The transition from the many gods to the one God will be accomplished in that hour when a corresponding transition has been made from the attraction of the eye to the attraction of the mind. It is in my opinion a great mistake to imagine that man's sense of the divine unity was originally awakened by his sense of natural law. I believe that it came before the coming of science, before the knowledge of nature, before the perception of law. I believe that it was awakened not by the intellect but by the heart, not by the sense of material fixedness, but by the recognition within the soul of a permanent love. If the child's toy were adequate to the child's whole nature, the toy would hold over the child a perpetual sceptre. The reason why tomorrow it changes the object of to-day is the fact that the object of to-day is only sufficient for the

day; to-morrow the child's nature will be bigger and will need a larger toy. So is it in the world of religious history. The childhood of the race will have a new god each day as long as each god shall only suffice for each day. But whenever the race shall find an ideal whose attractiveness shall be coextensive with all the instincts of humanity, whenever it shall fix its heart upon a form whose beauty shall be unaffected by the changes in natural beauty, it shall at that moment enter into the recognition of an object of worship which shall not only be supreme but permanent in its duration.

It is, then, a barren question to inquire at what time the race of man passed from the recognition of the many gods into the recognition of the one. There was, I believe, no such time, no settled date at which the collective human species made a simultaneous transition from Henotheism into Monotheism. It depended entirely upon the progress of the individual mind. Those men who had received from their object of worship the deepest satisfaction of their nature would keep their object longest; those who had received from it the satisfaction of all their nature would keep their object always. In one community there might exist side by side the representatives both of the old faith and of the new -some who were still each day exchanging one image for another, and some who had fixed their hearts upon a foundation that could not be moved.

But while it is useless to seek a precise stage in history when the worship of the many passed into the worship of the one, there is a search for unity which is far more legitimate and far more satisfactory. Instead of trying to determine at what time the many gods were combined into the single Deity, it would be of infinitely more purpose to determine what made it possible at any time for such a combination to take place. Is it not transparent on the very surface that, if the many have become the one, it can only be because there is already within the many a principle of unity. When two are made one it is because the two are already harmonious: a true marriage has its beginning not in the tying of the nuptial cord, but in that unity of life which has existed implicitly in the lives of the separate individuals. Even so is it in the religions of the world. If to every race. there has come a time when the worship of one God has supplanted the worship of many deities, it can only be because in the worship of these many deities there has existed from the beginning one common element, one underlying principle which has made them already a unity. The marriage is not the cause but the effect of their union, the last result and the outward expression of what has been all along latent within. What is this principle of union that exists already in the diversities of worship? It is a far more important question