n of fear, which thrust themselves between God and man. "The
idea of God which is found in the religions of the Indian Archipelago,
and probably also of Africa, cannot have been distilled from the motley
jumble of gods and of nature, for it exists in direct opposition to the
latter. The idea of God is preserved, but His worship is lost." In
reviewing this book the late Dr. Schmauk said in 1910: "A dispassionate
study of heathen religions confirms the view of Paul that heathenism is
a fall from a better knowledge of God. The idols come between God and
man."

W. St. Clair Tisdale, concludes an exhaustive study of _"Christianity
and Other Faiths"_ with the statement: "It follows that Monotheism
historically preceded Polytheism, and that the latter is a corruption of
the former. It is impossible to explain the facts away. Taken together
they show that, as the Bible asserts, man at the very beginning of
history knew the One True God. This implies a Revelation of some sort
and traces of that Revelation are still found in many ancient faiths."

We conclude that the history of religion does not only fail to support
the evolutionistic postulate of a slow upward development of religions
from crude original beliefs, but quite the reverse. It is true that the
popular handbooks of comparative religion quite generally teach a
development of religious belief through animism, fetishism, and
polytheism to monotheism. But the consonant testimony of specialists in
the field of historical study and of those who have had first-hand
acquaintance with the aborigines of heathen lands, is a strong dissent
from this position. Here again we find confident assertion of an
evolutionistic process mainly among those who lack the qualifications
of original research. Even as it is not the specialist in biology that
still maintains the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, but the
non-professional and the amateur, even so the specialist acquainted
with the original sources, and the explorer, possessing first hand
knowledge, asserts a decline, through history, from purer to less
spiritual faiths, while the bias of the evolutionist, who has no first
hand knowledge of the sources constrains him to begin his scheme of
religion with animism and fetish-worship. The theory which holds him in
thrall demands such a construction. But the theory is contradicted by
the facts, which point unmistakably to a degeneration of the race, to a
Fall of Man.

CHAPTER T