the Veda know nothing of the artificial theories
of verbal inspiration, they were not altogether unconscious of higher
influences: nay, they speak of their hymns as god-given ('devattam,'
Rv. III. 37, 4). One poets says (Rv. VI. 47, 10): 'O god (Indra) have
mercy, give me my daily bread! Sharpen my mind, like the edge of iron.
Whatever I now may utter, longing for thee, do thou accept it; make me
possessed of God!' Another utters for the first time the famous hymn,
the Gayatri, which now for more than three thousand years has been the
daily prayer of every Brahman, and is still repeated every morning by
millions of pious worshippers: 'Let us meditate on the adorable light
of the divine Creator: may he rouse our minds.'[13] This consciousness
of higher influences, or of divine help in those who uttered for the
first time the simple words of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, is
very different, however, from the artificial theories of verbal
inspiration which we find in the later theological writings; it is
indeed but another expression of that deepfelt dependence on the
Deity, of that surrender and denial of all that seems to be self,
which was felt more or less by every nation, but by none, I believe,
more strongly, more constantly, than by the Indian. "It is He that has
made it,"--namely, the prayer in which the soul of the poet has thrown
off her burden,--is but a variation of, "It is He that has made us,"
which is the key-note of all religion, whether ancient or modern,
whether natural or revealed.

I must say no more to-night of what the Veda is, for I am very anxious
to explain to you, as far as it is possible, what I consider to be the
real importance of the Veda to the student of history, to the student
of religion, to the student of mankind.

[Footnote 13: 'Tat Savitur vare_n_yam bhargo devasya dhimahi, dhiyo yo
na_h_ pra_k_odayat.'--Colebrooke, 'Miscellaneous Essays,' i. 30. Many
passages bearing on this subject have been collected by Dr. Muir in
the third volume of his 'Sanskrit Texts,' p. 114 seq.]

In the study of mankind there can hardly be a subject more deeply
interesting than the study of the different forms of religion; and
much as I value the Science of Language for the aid which it lends us
in unraveling some of the most complicated tissues of the human
intellect, I confess that to my mind there is no study more absorbing
than that of the Religions of the World,--the study, if I may so call
it, of t