e throughout
Nature was venerated as female; but with that increase of knowledge
which was the result of observation and experience, juster or more
correct ideas came to prevail, and subsequently the great fructifying
energy throughout the universe came to be regarded as a dual indivisible
force--female and male. This force, or agency, constituted one God,
which, as woman's functions in those ages were accounted of more
importance than those of man, was oftener worshipped under the form of a
female figure.

Neith, Minerva, Athene, and Cybele, the most important deities of their
respective countries, were adored as Perceptive Wisdom, or Light,
while Ceres and others represented Fertility. With the incoming of male
dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the desire to annul the
importance of the female and to enthrone one all-powerful male god whose
chief attributes were power and might.

Notwithstanding the efforts which during the historic period have been
put forward to magnify the importance of the male both in human affairs
and in the god-idea, still, no one, I think, can study the mythologies
and traditions of the nations of antiquity without being impressed with
the prominence given to the female element, and the deeper the study the
stronger will this impression grow.

During a certain stage of human development, religion was but a
recognition of and a reliance upon the vivifying or fructifying forces
throughout Nature, and in the earlier ages of man's career, worship
consisted for the most part in the celebration of festivals at
stated seasons of the year, notably during seed-time and harvest, to
commemorate the benefits derived from the grain field and vineyard.

Doubtless the first deified object was Gaia, the Earth. As within the
bosom of the earth was supposed to reside the fructifying, life-giving
power, and as from it were received all the bounties of life, it was
female. It was the Universal Mother, and to her as to no other divinity
worshipped by mankind, was offered a spontaneity of devotion and a
willing acknowledgment of dependence. Thus far in the history of mankind
no temples dedicated to an undefined and undefinable God had been
raised. The children of Mother Earth met in the open air, without the
precincts of any man-made shrine, and under the aerial canopy of heaven,
acknowledged the bounties of the great Deity and their dependence upon
her gifts. She was a beneficent and all-wise God, a t