, continues to approach its gods,
for the purpose, and with the emotion of mingled fear and hope, with
which it had always come into the presence of its gods. It is the
irreconcilability of the mood of emotion, which is essentially
religious, with the mythological mode of reflective thought, which is
not, that tends to bring about the religious reaction against
mythology. It is not however until the divergence between religion
and mythology has become considerable that the irreconcilability
becomes manifest. And it is in the experience of some individual, and
not in the common consciousness, that this irreconcilability is first
discovered. That discovery it is which makes the discoverer realise
that it is not merely when he comes before the presence of his gods in
their temples, but that, whenever his heart rises on the tide of
mingled fear, hope and thanksgiving, he comes into the presence of his
God. Having sought for the divine personality in all the external
objects of the world around him in the end he learns, what was the
truth from the beginning,--that it is in his heart he has access to
his God.

The belief in gods does not of necessity result in a mythology. The
instance of the _di indigites_ of Italy is there to show that it is no
inevitable result. But mythology, wherever it is found, is of itself
sufficient proof that gods are, or have been, believed in; it is the
outcome of reflection and enquiry about the gods, whom the community
approaches, with mingled feelings of hope and fear, and worships with
sacrifice and prayer. Now, a mythology, or perhaps we should rather
say fragments of a mythology, may continue to exist as survivals, long
after belief in the gods, of whom the myths were originally told, has
changed, or even passed away entirely. Such traces of gods dethroned
are to be found in the folk-lore of most Christian peoples. Indeed,
not only are traces of bygone mythology to be found in Christendom;
but rites and customs, which once formed part of the worship of now
forgotten gods; or it may be that only the names of the gods survive
unrecognised, as in the names of the days of the week. The existence
of such survivals in Europe is known; their history has been traced;
their origin is undoubted. When, then, in other quarters of the globe
than Europe, amongst peoples which are as old as any European people,
though they have no recorded history, we find fragments of mythology,
or of ritual, or mere nam