I first direct your attention to India and Egypt. In these two countries what is commonly called Pantheism prevailed. Now, I know that word represents complex rather than simple ideas to you, and needs a little explanation. Pantheism, speaking in a general way, is of two kinds: First, the Pantheism that sinks all nature into one substance, one essence, and then concludes that that one substance or essence is God. Such Pantheism as this is the purest Monism—that is, the one substance theory; and is spoken of by some of our philosophers as the purest Theism—that is, faith in one God. Indeed, Pantheism, in this aspect of it, is looked upon as a sort of exaggerated Theism; for it regards "God" as the only substance, of which the material universe and man are but ever-changing manifestations. It is the form of Pantheism which identifies mind and matter, the finite and infinite, making them but manifestations of one universal being; but in effect it denies the personality, by which I mean the individuality, of God. This was, and, for matter of that, is now, the general belief of many millions in India. The Pantheism which expands the one substance into all the variety of objects that we see in nature, is the second kind of Pantheism referred to a moment since, and regards those various parts as God, or God expanded into nature. This leads to the grossest kind of idolatry, as it did in Egypt, at the time of which I am speaking. Under this form of Pantheism men worshiped various objects in nature; the sun, moon, stars; in fact, anything and everything that bodied forth to their minds, some quality, or power, or attribute of the Deity. This was the Pantheism of Egypt, and led to the abominable and disgusting idolatry of that land.
The Religion of China.
Turn your attention now northward from India, and take into account those great masses of our race inhabiting China; and you will find there, according to the statement of Max Muller,
A colorless and unpoetical religion; a religion we might almost venture to call monosyllabic, consisting of the worship of a host of single spirits, representing the sky; the sun, storms and lightning, mountains and rivers; one standing by the side of the other without any mutual attraction, without any higher principle to hold them together. In addition to this we likewise meet in China with the worship of ancestral spirits, the spirits of the departed, who are supposed to retain some cognizance of human affairs, and to possess peculiar powers which they exercise for good or evil. This double worship of human and natural spirits constitutes the old and popular religion of China, and it has lived on to the present day, at least in the lower ranks of society, though there towers above it a more elevated range of half religious and half philosophical faith, a belief in two higher Powers, which, in the language of philosophy, may mean Form and Matter, in the language of ethics, Good and Evil, but which in the original language of religion and mythology are represented as Heaven and Earth.[A]
[Footnote A: Science of Religion (Muller) pp. 61, 62.]
Such was the ancient religion of China; and such, to a very large extent, is the religion of China to this day. It must be remembered that the great Chinese philosopher Confucius did not disturb this ancient religious belief. He did not, in fact, profess to be a teacher of religion at all, but was content if he could but influence men to properly observe human relations. On one occasion he was asked how the "spirits could be served," to which he made answer, "If we are not able to serve men, how can we serve the spirits?" On another occasion he said to his followers, "Respect the gods, and keep them at a distance."[A]
[Footnote A: Ibid p. 87.]
Religion in Northern Europe.
Let us now enter Northern Europe, among the Germanic tribes, and make inquiry as to what conceptions of God they held. Here you find a shadowy, undefined, and not well understood belief in the existence of an all-pervading influence, or spirit; a Supreme Being, to whom the Goths, at least, gave the name of "Alfader," meaning the Father of all; yet, strange to say, they paid him no divine honors, gave him no worship, but contented themselves in worshiping inferior deities, their old war heroes in the main, whom they had apotheosized and who, it must be acknowledged, represented the national qualities of that people at that time.