o not give it so much attention as they
ought, but we shall find it true in all countries and in all the
centuries that it is one of the main interests of human life. There are
few subjects, probably there is no other subject, to which the human
race has given so much thought as to the subject of religion. The
greatest buildings which have been erected on this planet were for the
service of religion; more books have been written about it than about
any other theme; a large part of the world's art has had a religious
impulse; many, alas! of the most destructive wars of history have been
prompted by it; it has laid the foundations of great nations, our own
among them, and has given form and direction to every great civilization
under the sun.

It is not a churchman, or a theologian, it is Mr. John Fiske, one of the
foremost scientific investigators, who has said of religion: "None can
deny that it is the largest and most ubiquitous fact connected with the
existence of mankind upon the earth."[1]

About the size of the fact there is no disputing, but how shall we
explain it? Where did it come from?

The scientific people have puzzled their heads not a little over the
question where the life on this planet came from. They cannot make up
their minds to say that it came from non-living matter; and some of them
have ventured a guess that the first germs might have been brought by a
meteorite from some distant planet. That, however, only pushes the
mystery one step further back: how did it come to be on that distant
planet?

The origin of religion has furnished a similar puzzle to these
investigators. There are those among them who assume that religion is an
invention of crafty men who find it a means of obtaining ascendency over
their fellows. That it is all imposture--the product of priestcraft--is
the theory of some small philosophers. Such being the case, they expect
that the progress of knowledge will cause it to disappear.

To others it seems probable that religious ideas may have originated in
the phenomena of dreams. In the visions of the night those who have
passed out of life reappear; this gives room for the belief that they
are still in existence, and suggests that there may be another world
whose inhabitants exert an important influence over the affairs of this
world. According to this ghost theory, religion is all an illusion.

Such crude explanations are, however, not much credited in these days by
thought