most devoutly. The sanitary fastidiousness of these guardian spirits is a curious feature of their relation to the people. If they could only be persuaded to exert their influence in the direction of scientific sanitary measures, much good might result.1

India is a land of myths, a perfect "jungle of disorderly superstitions, ghosts and demons, demigods and deified saints, household gods, local gods, tribal gods, universal gods, with their

the mantra.

India and the reign of countless shrines and temples." Sir Alfred Lyall speaks of the "extraordinary fecundity of the superstitious sentiment." The whole country is alive with imaginary terrors-it is a realm swarming with ghostly fears. Devotees in every direction are working with might and main to free themselves from some dire fate or win some hoped-for merit. The wily Brahman, with his monopoly of enchantments, can count upon the absolute mental servility of the spellbound Hindus. The mantra is his ready and facile tool. This is a sacred text, usually of Vedic origin, transformed into a spell or charm, which, if pronounced in accordance with some mystical formula and with absolute accuracy of enunciation, behidden caves. Any event of life may be governed by their interference. Luck plays a large part in the economy of native life. Innumerable are the specifics for various ills, the former growing out of the care, and the latter out of the malevolence, of fairies or demons. Children are scared into good behavior and adults are kept at home by reports of spirits that are abroad at night. Omens are seen in the visits of the birds; the dreams which disturb the night are portents; and almost every chance event has for Koreans a bearing on the future.”—Gilmore, “Korea from its Capital," pp. 194, 195.

1 "

There are also self-existent spirits of kindlier disposition and the spirits of the good and prosperous, who may be induced by proper intercessions, accompanied by offerings, to deliver the afflicted from the power of the evil spirits. The good of each individual in this life is dependent on his ability to keep the favor of the latter class, and to do so is the constant and deep anxiety which makes other considerations secondary. Comforts and bare necessities of life are sacrificed for this.

"At every house the god of the site is worshipped. At every house, when invited with becoming ceremony, the house-god dwells. This spirit is supposed to bring health and happiness to the inmates of the house, though he is not able always to ward off disease, and in case of contagious fevers he will leave the house till it has been purified and he has been asked to return. The ceremonies attending the introduction or recall of this spirit are rather interesting. The house having been purified and a feast prepared, the mootang (sorceress), who has been called for the occasion, starts out to hunt the house-god. She ties a good-sized sheet of paper around an oak rod, which she holds upright in her hand. She may find the spirit just outside the house, or she may have to go some distance before he indicates his presence by shaking the rod with so much force that many men with their united strength could not hold it still. He accompanies the mootang to the house. Upon their arrival great demonstrations of joy are made that he has come to bless the

comes an all-powerful talisman. This magical device is used for securing good or evil, as the case may be, and is used by the mantrasastris-Brahmans who make a profession of trading in mantras. They are regarded with supernatural reverence and fear by the Hindus.1 Austerities, curses, omens, the evil eye, and the marvelous horoscope of the astrologer are all of intense significance to the Hindu. That this grim procession of phantasies, and the attendant mystical expedients which they imply, should be inevitable in the mental outlook of the philosophic and acute Hindu seems manifest. Without the true light of revelation and science, he must seek such relief as his own fertile imagination can invent. His deeply mystical, and at the same time deeply sensuous, nature has reared an imposing pantheon of phantasmagoria, where he dwells with restless soul and tortured sensibilities. family with his presence. The paper which was tied around the stick is folded, soaked in wine, a few pieces of cash slipped into it, and then tossed up against a beam in the house, to which it adheres. Rice is thrown up, some of which sticks to the paper. That particular spot is to be the abiding-place of the spirit. The expense connected with this ceremony is considerable, and in some cases poverty compels a family to dispense with it.

"The word mama, which we hear applied to smallpox, is not the name of the disease, but of the spirit whose presence with the victim is indicated by the disease. He has been known in Korea only during the last one thousand years, I have been told, and his native place is Southern China. When the disease makes its appearance the mootang is called to honor the spirit with appropriate ceremonies and a feast. During his stay no work, or as little as possible, is done, even by the neighbors, especially if they have children who have not had the disease, lest, displeased with the lack of respect shown him, he deal severely with them. The parents do obeisance to the afflicted child, addressing it at all times in terms of highest respect.

When the twelfth day has passed, if the child live through it, all danger being then supposed to be over, the mootang is again called and a farewell banquet given. A miniature wooden horse is prepared and loaded with miniature sacks of food and money for the spirit's journey, and he is bidden adieu with many wishes for a safe return to his native place."-Quoted from an article on "Spirit-Worship in Korea," by Mrs. D. L. Gifford (P. B. F. M. N.), Seoul, Korea, in Woman's Work in the Far East, May, 1894, pp. 107-109.

1 The following description of the mantra-monger is from the pen of Sir M. Monier-Williams:

"No magician, wizard, sorcerer, or witch, whose feats are recorded in history, biography, or fable, has ever pretended to be able to accomplish by incantation and enchantment half of what the mantra-sastri claims to have power to effect by help of his mantras. For example, he can prognosticate futurity, work the most startling prodigies, infuse breath into dead bodies, kill or humiliate enemies, afflict any one anywhere with disease or madness, inspire any one with love, charm weapons and give them unerring efficacy, enchant armour and make it impenetrable, turn milk into wine, plants into meat, or invert all such processes at will. He is even superior to the gods, and can make gods, goddesses, imps, and demons carry out his most

The same story of talismans, omens, and every-day marvels of jinn, afreet, and magical paraphernalia, runs through the religious and social life of Moslems in India, Persia, and TurThe “Arabian Nights" key, while numerous superstitions are prevalent among the unreformed Christian sects of the Levant. In fact, the Oriental Christians, except as the enlightenment of modern education has entered among them, are hardly less the victims of credulity than their Moslem neighbors.

up to date.

In Africa there is a rank growth of overshadowing superstitions as real as daylight and darkness to the diseased imagination of the native. Totemism, fetichism, animism, in their pristine vigor or in degenerate forms, are in absolute possession of all the religious and social life of the people. Sorcery, witchcraft, and every phase of demoniacal environment are the intellectual atmosphere of the native African.2

Demon-ridden islands.

Australasia outside of the modern colonial expansion, but including the Pacific Islands, has been noted for immemorial superstitions, many of which were abominable in their character, and all of which held terrific sway over the imagination. In writing of the Pacific Islands, Alexander says: Distressing superstitions darkened all the lives of the natives and held them in iron bondage. In the long night of their isolation from enlightening influences they had come to worship innumerable gods and demigods and demons, with which they supposed the sky and earth and sea to swarm. With this worship were combined painful restrictions, called tabu, divination, sorcery, the use of charms to cure sickness, and black arts to employ evil spirits in destroying their enemies."3 Great enlightenment has come to many of these islands, where the long, dark reign of superstition has, to a great extent, passed away. In places where it still holds the old sway over the mind, fears and suspicions predominate in the daily experience of

trifling behests. Hence it is not surprising that the following remarkable saying is everywhere current throughout India: 'The whole universe is subject to the gods; the gods are subject to the mantras; the mantras to the Brahmans; therefore the Brahmans are our gods.'"-" Brahmanism and Hinduism," pp. 201, 202.

1 " Superstition in Syria," by Dr. George A. Ford, in Woman's Work for Woman, December, 1895, p. 323; Wilson, "Persian Life and Customs," pp. 84, 132, 143, 157, 220-225.

2 Jevons, "Introduction to the History of Religion"; Macdonald, "Religion and Myth"; Tyler, "Forty Years among the Zulus," chap. xii.; Sibree, "Madagascar before the Conquest," especially chap. xiii.

3 "The Islands of the Pacific," p. 28. Cf. Ratzel, “"History of Mankind,” vol. i., pp. 300-330.

natives. There are still, unhappily, vast populations that are demonridden, and live under the blight of dominant superstitions, childish as well as terrifying.1

Superstition a social calamity.

Almost everywhere upon the face of the earth a gross darkness of ignorance seems to rest upon the hearts of men. A heavy burden of erroneous belief, both distressing and degrading, has become fixed upon their consciences, and there it remains, except as the light of Christian education and Gospel instruction breaks in upon their night and introduces them into the freedom of the truth. The blighting power of these superstitions on social life is beyond question. It is mental and spiritual slavery to the unreal and the untrue which is blinding, misleading, and sure to result in injustice, cruelty, and the abuse of power. It prohibits the entrance of true light so far as it has power to do so, and maintains entirely false standards of social obligation. It scatters and dissipates the religious sentiment among a mass of puerile and erroneous vagaries, barring out the truth and fixing the dominance of the false. The banishment of superstition will go far toward securing a brighter and more cheerful social life and a higher and more beneficial social order.

The genesis of persecution.

4. RELIGIOUS TYRANNY AND PERSECUTION.-The sacred gift of religious freedom is an endowment from the Creator, and, except where it is claimed as a cover for immorality and crime, is a universal prerogative of man.2 Humanity cannot be deprived of this precious liberty without the infliction of a great and cruel wrong; yet this heinous usurpation has been characteristic of both the political and religious life of mankind in all ages. Christianos ad leones" represents a spirit of persecution which has prevailed more or less through

1 Michelsen, "Cannibals Won for Christ," chap. xv., on "Native Superstitions"; Chalmers, "Pioneering in New Guinea," chap. viii., on "The Habits, Customs, and Beliefs of Motu and Motumotu."

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2 Liberty is the greatest gift of God to man. It is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable right of every man created in the image of God. The most precious of all liberties is religious liberty. It is rooted in the sacredness of conscience, which is the voice of God in man, and above the reach and control of human authority. It is a law above all human laws that we ought to obey God rather than man.' Liberty of conscience requires liberty of worship. Despots allow the one because they cannot help it, but deny the other. Religion in its nature is voluntary, and ceases to be religion in proportion as it is forced. God desires free worshippers and hates hypocrites."-Schaff, "Theological Propedeutic," p. 470.

out history. The fact that religion in its primitive form was to such an extent a social function, pertaining to family, tribal, and even national life, has led to the assumption on the part of the State, in its various stages of development, of a large measure of control over the religious life of its subjects. In the Roman Empire the supervision of the religion of the people was made a matter of State policy on political grounds. Bishop Creighton calls attention to the following language of Plato upon this subject, which, he remarks, did not materially differ from that of the Inquisitor:

"Let this, then, be the law: No one shall possess shrines of the gods in private houses, and he who is found to possess them, and perform any sacred rites not publicly authorised, shall be informed against to the guardians of the law; and let them issue orders that he shall carry his private rites to the public temples, and if he do not obey, let them inflict a penalty until he comply. And if a person be proven guilty of impiety, not merely from childish levity, but such as grownup men may be guilty of, let him be punished with death."1 These sentiments were representative in Roman history.

Christianity rightly interpreted not persecuting in its spirit.

The theocracy of the Old Testament dispensation has been misinterpreted by some as sanctioning, and even enforcing, the exercise of civil authority in the sphere of religion. Even the New Testament dispensation has been marked by most frightful and iniquitous misuse, not only of civil, but ecclesiastical, power to subdue the consciences of men and annihilate all religious freedom. That this has been the result of a distorted conception of Christianity and a gross abuse of authority has been shown by Bishop Creighton, in opposition to the view' advocated by Mr. Lecky, that Christianity sanctions and is in large measure responsible for this spirit.2 A new era of religious liberty has come, 1 Quoted in "Persecution and Tolerance," p. 7.

Dr. Merivale, in his "Boyle Lectures," expresses a similar opinion:

Undoubtedly various feelings entered into the demand for the persecution of the Christians. The magistrate regarded them as transgressors of a principle in public law, as evil-doers, as fosterers of treason and sedition, and was disposed to punish them accordingly. But the people generally, and sometimes the rulers themselves, yielded to a superstitious impulse in ascribing to their rejection of sacrifice and of idol-worship every public calamity, which testified, as they supposed, to the wrath of the offended deities. The execution of the Christians was thus popularly regarded as a means of propitiation."-New York ed., 1865, p. 251, note.

2 Dr. Creighton sums up his conclusions on this subject as follows: "(1) Persecution, or the infliction of punishment for erroneous opinions, was contrary to the express teaching of Christ, and was alien to the spirit of Christianity; (2) was adopted by the Church from the system of the world when the Church