he wages of sin is death." There comes
a period in the evolution of tribal life when the primitive bonds are
loosening, when the tendency towards SELF-will and SELF-determination
(so necessary of course in the long run for the evolution of humanity)
becomes a real danger to the tribe, and a terror to the wise men and
elders of the community. It is seen that the children inherit this
tendency--even from their infancy. They are no longer mere animals,
easily herded; it seems that they are born in sin--or at least in
ignorance and neglect of their tribal life and calling. The only cure is
that they MUST BE BORN AGAIN. They must deliberately and of set purpose
be adopted into the tribe, and be made to realize, even severely,
in their own persons what is happening. They must go through the
initiations necessary to impress this upon them. Thus a whole series of
solemn rites spring up, different no doubt in every locality, but all
having the same object and purpose. (And one can understand how the
necessity of such initiations and second birth may easily have been
itself felt in every race, at some stage of its evolution--and THAT
quite as a spontaneous growth, and independently of any contagion of
example caught from other races.)

The same may be said about the world-wide practice of the Eucharist.
No more effective method exists for impressing on the members of a body
their community of life with each other, and causing them to forget
their jangling self-interests, than to hold a feast in common. It is a
method which has been honored in all ages as well as to-day. But when
the flesh partaken of at the feast is that of the Totem--the guardian
and presiding genius of the tribe--or perhaps of one of its chief
food-animals--then clearly the feast takes on a holy and solemn
character. It becomes a sacrament of unity--of the unity of all with the
tribe, and with each other. Self-interests and self-consciousness are
for the time submerged, and the common life asserts itself; but here
again we see that a custom like this would not come into being as a
deliberate rite UNTIL self-consciousness and the divisions consequent
thereon had grown to be an obvious evil. The herd-animals (cows, sheep,
and so forth) do not have Eucharists, simply because they are sensible
enough to feed along the same pastures without quarrelling over the
richest tufts of grass.

When the flesh partaken of (either actually or symbolically) is not that
of a d