in every creed. It is
a bold and somewhat perilous revolution to attempt to overturn this
doctrine and to set up monotheism in its place, and, when successfully
accomplished, is rarely permanent. The more educated portions of the
community maintain allegiance to the new teaching, perhaps; but among
the lower classes it soon becomes degraded to, or amalgamated with, some
form of polytheism more or less pronounced, and either secret or
declared. Even the Jews, the nation the most conspicuous for its
supposed uncompromising adherence to a monotheistic creed, cannot claim
absolute freedom from taint in this respect; for in the country places,
far from the centre of worship, the people were constantly following
after strange gods; and even some of their most notable worthies were
liable to the same accusation.

16. It is not necessary, however, that the individuality and
specialization of function of the supreme beings recognized by any
religious system should be so conspicuous as they are in this case, or
in the Greek or Roman Pantheon, to mark it as in its essence
polytheistic or of polytheistic tendency. It is quite enough that the
immortals are deemed to be capable of hearing and answering the prayers
of their adorers, and of interfering actively in passing events, either
for good or for evil. This, at the root of it, constitutes the crucial
difference between polytheism and monotheism; and in this sense the
Roman Catholic form of Christianity, representing the oldest undisturbed
evolution of a strictly monotheistic doctrine, is undeniably
polytheistic. Apart from the Virgin Mary, there is a whole hierarchy of
inferior deities, saints, and angels, subordinate to the One Supreme
Being. This may possibly be denied by the authorized expounders of the
doctrine of the Church of Rome; but it is nevertheless certain that it
is the view taken by the uneducated classes, with whom the saints are
much more present and definite deities than even the Almighty Himself.
It is worth noting, that during the dancing mania of 1418, not God, or
Christ, or the Virgin Mary, but St. Vitus, was prayed to by the populace
to stop the epidemic that was afterwards known by his name.[1] There was
a temple to St. Michael on Mount St. Angelo, and Augustine thought it
necessary to declare that angel-worshippers were heretics.[2] Even
Protestantism, though a much younger growth than Catholicism, shows a
slight tendency towards polytheism. The saints ar