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Now if the rite as it occurs in Australia is pure magic, and if religion is not a variety of magic but fundamentally different from it, then the rite which, as it occurs everywhere else, is religious, cannot be derived from, or a variety of, the Australian piece of magic; and the spring and harvest customs which are found in Australia cannot be "based on the same ancient modes of thought or form part of the same primitive heathendom" as the sacramental rites which are found everywhere else in the world. The solemn annual eating of the totem plant or animal in Australia must have a totally different basis from that on which the sacrament and communion stands in every other part of the globe: in Australia it is based on magic, elsewhere on that which is, according to Dr. Frazer, fundamentally different and opposed to magic, viz. religion. Before, however, we commit ourselves to this conclusion, we may be allowed to ask, What is it that compels us thus to sever the Australian from the other forms of the rite? The reply would seem to be that, whereas the other forms are admittedly religious, the Australian is "a magical rite intended to assure the revival of nature in spring." Now, if that were really the nature of the Australian rite, we might have to accept the conclusion to which we hesitate to commit ourselves. But, as a matter of fact, the Australian rite is not intended to assure the revival of nature in spring, and has nothing magical about it. It is perfectly true that in spring in Australia certain proceedings are performed which are based upon the principle that like produces like; and that these proceedings are, by students of the science of religion, termed perhaps incorrectly magical. But these spring customs are quite different from the harvest customs; and it is the harvest customs which constitute the link between the rite in Australia and the rite in the rest of the world. The crucial question, therefore, is whether the Australian harvest rite is magical, or is even based on the principle that like produces like. And the answer is that it is plainly not. The harvest rite in Australia consists, as we know it now, simply in the fact that at the appointed time a little of the totem plant or animal is solemnly and sparingly eaten by the headman of the totem. The solemnity with which the rite is performed is unmistakable, and may well be termed religious. And no attempt even, so far as I am aware, has been made to show that this solemn eating is regarded as magic by the performers of the rite, or how it can be so regarded by students of the science of religion. Until the attempt is made and made successfully, we are more than justified in refusing to regard the rite as magical; we are bound to refuse to regard it as such. But if the rite is not magical and
It will never do to estimate man's moral knowledge by man's moral character. He knows more than he practises. And there is not so much difference in this particular between some men in nominal Christendom, and some men in Heathendom, as is sometimes imagined.
This was cordially granted. And so our second Dayspring, owing no man anything, sailed on her annual trip to the New Hebrides, and we returned with her, praising the Lord and reinvigorated alike in spirit and in body. IN Heathendom every true convert becomes at once a Missionary. The changed life, shining out amid the surrounding darkness, is a Gospel in largest Capitals which all can read.
The church and its ministers have authority to teach through Christ and what He has commanded. There is a certain and quite definite body of truth. This body of truth, preached in the heart of heathendom or in the most fashionable church, in the most highly civilized country, is quite sure to produce certain definite results in awakening men from their sins and causing them to lead a new life.
The spirits once supposed to be their inner identity would become perfectly separable in thought from them, because merely their tenants. Thus the gulf would be bridged between the savage philosophy of spirits described by Mr. Im Thurn, and the polytheism of the higher heathendom, represented by Mexico, Scandinavia, and Greece.
"It seems," says M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown God. In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed.
Her doctrines, as taught by Augustine and Boniface, by Anschar and Sigfrid, were comparatively mild and pure; but she had scarce swallowed the heathendom of the North, much in the same way as the Wolf was to swallow Odin at the 'Twilight of the Gods', than she fell into a deadly lethargy of faith, which put it out of her power to digest her meal.
Such virtue had our ancestors, even though they worshipped darkly at the altars of daemons. But from that pride they fell, for their hearts were hardened; and, at length, when heathendom had wellnigh destroyed the principle whereby they waxed, God revealed Himself unto His chosen, that ancient virtue and new faith might restore the world.
In the long ages, Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." Two thousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat your swords into plough-shares.
Wherefore, I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard, and voyage with it to England, France, Spain, Italy, or into Heathendom, if Providence should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth, that he may place it among his crown jewels. If any of ye have a wiser plan, let him expound it."
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