HISTORY OF RELIGION A SKETCH OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS BY ALLAN MENZIES, D.D. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS 'Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.' ACTS xv. 18. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 1895 PREFACE THIS book makes no prefence to be a guide to all the mythologies, all the religious practices which have prevailed in the words intended to aid the student who desires peneral idea of comparative religion, by exhibiting the subject as a connected and organic whole, and by indicating the leading points of view from which each of the great systems may best be understood. A certain amount of discussion is employed in order to bring clearly before the reader the great motives and ideas by which the various religions are inspired, and the movements of thought which they present. And the attempt is made to exhibit the great manifestations of human piety in their genealogical connection. The writer has ventured to deal with the religions of the Bible, each in its proper historical place, and trusts that he has not by doing so rendered any disservice either to Christian faith or to the science of religion. It is obvious that in a work claiming to be scientific, and appealing to men of every faith, all religions must be treated impartially, and that the same method must be applied to each of them. In a field of study, every part of which is being illuminated almost every year by fresh discoveries, such |