In other mythologies, it is some amphibious animal — the beaver, the otter, or the muskrat - which dives down and brings up the mud which constitutes the first land. In Polynesian mythology, it is one of the gods who went to fish in the sea, when, feeling something heavy at the end of his line, he perceived some rocks, and, continuing to pull, fished up a whole continent; but, then, his line broke, and only the Tonga Islands remained above the surface. It was first settled by a company of minor gods and goddesses, who visited it from curiosity; but, having eaten the fruits of earth and breathed its air, they lost their divine nature and were turned to mortals. The childishness of view, the utter simplicity of such myths, is only too evident.

Now, when we go above these three lower races to the Mongoloids, we find myths crude enough, to be sure, but decidedly higher, and breathing a different spirit. Creation (in accordance with that reverence for ancestors that distinguished them) was the work of the first man, Pwanku. He was produced by the primal matter, but, when he had come to life, found it still shapeless and chaotic. So he went to work at once, chiselling out the earth and hewing it into shape. His efforts were continued for eighteen thousand years; and, by small degrees, he and his work increased. The heavens rose, the earth spread out and thickened, and Pwanku grew in stature six feet every day till he died. Then, his head became mountains; his breath, wind and clouds; his voice, thunder. His limbs were changed into the four poles; his veins, into rivers; his flesh, into fields; his skin and hair, into herbs and trees; his teeth and bones, into metals and rocks; his dropping sweat, into rain; and lastly, with a most laughable exhibition of primitive simplicity, the myth gravely tells us that the insects on his body were transmuted into the people of the earth.

We see in this myth, plainly enough, those materialistic associations that I have already spoken of in reference to Chinese religion; that inability to separate in thought the material from the spiritual, and the natural from the supernatural. How different from this the Semitic legend of

creation, as we have it in the first of Genesis!

How clear

and broad these distinctions of Creator from creation; and how vastly superior to previous conceptions of creation is that which is presented by the majestic picture of the Supreme Being, who was in the beginning before all else, and who, by his sovereign word alone, successively brought matter out of the void and order out of the chaos, and summoned earth, sun, moon, plants, animals, and, at last, man himself into being.

From beginning to end, the Genesis account of creation bears the mark of that Semitic tendency to emphasize, above all other attributes, the power and the sovereignty of the Divine, and to separate sharply between the finite and the infinite. In this conception of a personal Creator, an terior to all the ordering and moulding of matter, a Creator above nature, who by his spirit breathed life into all animate things, the intellect of man had pushed its inquiries into profound depths, and faith had made grand assertions.

But the subtle Hindu thought could not rest here. It wanted to probe deeper still. To those who told the Vedic bard of creative feats and divine creators, he had these further questions still to ask: "That which is beyond the earth and sky,- beyond gods and spirits; what earliest embryo did the waters hold in which all the gods lay congregated?" Rig-Veda, x., 82. "From whence came this Creator himself, and what was before him and all which he moulded? What was the wood (or material) from which the gods shaped heaven and earth? Wise men, ask in your minds on what he stood when he held the worlds?" RigVeda, x., 81, 4.

Here, the Hindu thought opens up boundless vistas of speculation, infinite abysses of analysis and perplexity, of which the Semitic mind never dreamed. Often, it got quite lost in the labyrinth itself; but the theologic courage and philosophic strength of wing, that dared to launch out into these interstellar spaces of metaphysics, must certainly command our warmest admiration.

Among all the varied theories and questionings about the

great problems of creation and existence, none are marked by keener comprehension and a loftier flight than that which is embalmed in the 129th Hymn of the 10th Mandala of the Rig-Veda:

"In the beginning there was neither naught nor aught.
Then there was neither sky nor atmosphere above.
What, then, enshrouded all this teeming universe?
In the receptacle of what was it contained?
Was it enveloped in the gulf profound of water?
Then there was neither death nor immortality.

Then there was neither day nor night nor light nor darkness.
Only the existent One breathed calmly, self-contained.
Naught else than it there was. Naught else above, beyond.
Then first came darkness hid in darkness, gloom in gloom.
Next, all was water. All a chaos, without parts or form.
In which the One lay void, shrouded in darkness.
Then, turning inwards, he, by self-developed force,
Of inner fervor and intense abstraction, grew,
And now in him Desire, that primal germ of mind,
Arose; which learned men, profoundly searching, say
Is the first subtle bond connecting Entity

With Nullity. This ray that kindled dormant life,
Where was it then? Before? Or was it found above?

Were there parturient powers and latent qualities,

And fecund principles beneath, and active forces,

That energized aloft? Who knows? Who can declare?

How and from what has sprung this universe?

The gods themselves are subsequent to its development.

Who, then, can penetrate the secret of its rise?

Whether 'twas formed or not? Made or not made? He only
Who in the highest heaven sits, the omniscient Lord,
Knows all, or haply even he knows not."

Max Müller's Chips, vol. i., p. 76.

Thus, in their mythologies and theologic speculations, in all the varied ramifications of the spiritual life, the distinct genius of the great races is shown; and when the great universal religions came forth to run their astonishing careers, breaking down all the old national barriers, and gathering men from the most diverse races into a single ecclesiastical fold, although for the moment these movements threatened to efface entirely the old ethnic characteristics,— they

could but do so partially, and the old racial and national spirit soon reasserts itself, and colors the universal religion with its own special dyes.

The universal religions purchase their welcome or their continued popularity only at the price of refracting their original white light through the prisms of popular thought into something of quite a different hue. See how Christianity, in the very first century after it was taken up by the Greeks and Romans, was divested of many of its Jewish features, and in another century or two quite moulded over into a form more akin to the Aryan spirit.

Compare the aspect of Islam among the pure Semites of Central Arabia and among the Aryan Persians: in the one region, so strict and narrow in its monotheism and the absolute despotism of Allah over his creatures; in the other region, luxuriating in the mystical sentimentality and pantheistic speculation of the Sufi philosophy.

Or put side by side the features of Buddhism, as it appears in Ceylon, and as it has been transformed in the course of its migrations among the Thibetans, the Chinese, and the Japanese, and no one can fail to see how the native spirit of a race dominates the whole aspect of any faith that it may be led to adopt.

Such, in outline, are the characteristic traits of the great races. To sum them up: it has been the part of the Mongoloid races to exhibit the breadth of Divinity, so to speak, exhibiting the deities as sympathizing familiar spirits, sitting by every hearth, companions whose help in earthly enterprises the prudent man duly seeks by gifts or flatteries.

It has been the part of the Semitic race to impress upon humanity the height and the grandeur of the Divine; his unequalled glory and terrible power; his inaccessible majesty, his rigorous sovereignty, from which there was no appeal.

It has been the function of the Aryan people to exhibit the depth, the interiorness, the mystic indwelling, the insoluble mysteriousness of the Divine, interpenetrating the lowest forms as well as dwelling in the highest; the one reality

of all appearance, an all-pervading motion and spirit, an infinite life, which is the fathomless background to every finite form,-yea, every form that men have thought divine. Here is an ampler and a profounder conception than either Mongoloid or Semitic nation had reached. Profound insight, splendid idealism, and a fascinating mysticism, distinguish the higher types of Aryan religion.

But, comprehensive and subtle as the synthesis was, we do not find in it the fulness of truth. Its pantheistic element and spirit of self-assertion needed to be balanced by the monotheistic truths and solemn awe belonging to the Semitic race. Its absorption in the Infinite and reverence for physical nature needed to be supplemented by that regard for the finite spirit and respect for human nature which we find in the Mongoloid or Turanian faiths.

To give the world the complete religion, universal in its aptitudes, that it needed, the truths that Turanian and Semitic faith had discerned must be fused with the rich and complex elements of Aryan thought, and must give them stability and unity. This it was that in the fulness of time Christianity achieved. Absorbing into itself whatever spiritual truth Turanian Assyria and Semitic Judaism, and Aryan, Greek, and Roman could supply, the gospel that Jesus Christ proclaimed, and Paul and John diffused, gave to the world, at length, that full and well-poised system of religious truth, whose principles, like Euclid's principles of geometry, may be, doubtless, much further developed, but can never be superseded as the best and strongest foundation beams of religion.

JAMES T. BIXBY.