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It is one of the peculiarities of the Moslem faith that any time of revival is apt to be accompanied by warlike fervour somewhat like that which enabled its early votaries to sweep over half of the known world in a single generation. This militant creed becomes dangerous when it personifies itself in a holy man who can make good his claim to be received as a successor of the Prophet.
When they desire to recast an institution which no longer suits them, they pile upon the individual who personifies this institution all the odium and all the condemnation of the institution itself, they make of this man a victim whom they sacrifice to the time.
Its chief strength and charm is that it personifies inanimate objects, as in the sixty-fourth Psalm, where David says: "The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow fat; and the hills shall be girded about with joy. The rams of the flock are clothed, and the vales shall abound with corn they shall shout, yea they shall sing a hymn."
That answer indeed must be sought in the horrible fears of the unenlightened human heart, which sees death and terror and evil around it everywhere and, in this grotesque form or in that, personifies them in gods, or rather in devils who must be propitiated. For always the fetish or the beast, or whatever it may be, is not the real object of worship.
In the more liberal sects the worship of Râma passes easily into theism and it is the direct parent of the Kabirpanth and Sikhism, but unlike Kṛishṇaism it does not lead to erotic excess. Râma personifies the ideal of chivalry, Sîtâ of chastity. Less edifying forms of worship may attract more attention, but it must not be supposed that Râma is relegated to the penumbra of philosophic thought.
The fondness of goats for straying in woods and nibbling the bark of trees, to which indeed they are most destructive, is an obvious and perhaps sufficient reason why wood-spirits should so often be supposed to take the form of goats. The inconsistency of a god of vegetation subsisting upon the vegetation which he personifies is not one to strike the primitive mind.
According to Saint Mechtildis, it is the simplicity of the heart of Jesus; with others it signifies the preachers, the active religious life, as contrasted with the turtle dove, which personifies the contemplative life, since the ring-dove flies and coos in company, whereas the turtle dove rejoices apart and alone. "To Bruno of Asti the dove is also an image of patience, a figure of the prophets.
He personifies the images, ideas, and conceptions by transforming them into living subjects, just as he had originally personified cosmic objects and phenomena. In myths, since they owe their origin to the reflex power which is gradually organized and developed, man carries on this faculty of personification which had already been exerted in him as an animal.
The latter being distinctly a water god, we may conclude that in some way, Bau is to be connected with water as a natural element. The conjecture may be hazarded that she personifies originally the waters of the upper realm the clouds.
It is barely possible that this may have been a whizzer or bull-roarer, such as are used at the present day to imitate the wind, and commonly carried by the performer in a public dance who personifies the warrior. The best preserved of all the pahos from the Sikyatki graves are represented in u and v, both of which were found in the same mortuary bowl.
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