s, pains, diseases, suffering,
and the ultimate death of his kind, he could only interpret these
things in terms of living personality, some great, powerful individual,
or individuals behind, and directing it all. These became man's first
gods.

Man also interpreted his own relation to the gods, and theirs to him,
in the same terms that defined his relations toward his fellowmen. He
recognized the fact that some of his fellowmen sometimes did him an
injury, or committed some offense against him; that this offense or
injury aroused in him a spirit of resentment, a desire for vengeance in
kind, even to the taking of the life of the man who had injured, or
seriously offended him. Man made his gods in his own image. He
believed these gods to be like himself. Thus, man interpreted his own
sufferings to mean that he was out of right relations with the gods;
that he had personally offended them,--or, one or more of them in some
way, according to the source from which he conceived some particular
affliction to come. When the individual was conscious of his own
innocence, he concluded that some of his ancestors had grievously
offended the god, who relentlessly pursued his posterity and inflicted
on them the penalties due for the sins of this ancestor. Hence the
doctrine of inherited or original Sin. Man then set about to devise
some means to appease the wrath of the gods, and thus restore
harmonious relations with them. A volume might be written here, but we
_must_ proceed with the next proposition.

All religion is therefore one in its ultimate purpose, and objective
end: To attain to its ideal, or harmonize with its objective. In other
words: To attain unto right relations with God. Lest I be
misunderstood, I will repeat: It is immaterial what this God may be,
Jehovah, Allah, Nirvana or Jove; Person, Principle, or Abstract Ideal.
It is that which man _in his mind_ sets before him, toward which he
aspires and strives to attain. Remember that what we _think_ God to
be, that is what God is to us.

We have now reached the point where divisions arise, where religion
branches out into religions. "Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah,
and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with
burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I
give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
sin of my s