whom he could not always see, but who might appear to him? What put
into his mind the strange imagination that these unseen beings were
more or less his masters? That they had made laws for him which he
must obey? That he must honour and worship them, and do them
service, in order that they might be favourable to him, and help,
and bless, and teach him? All nations except a very few savages
(and we do not know but that their forefathers had it like the rest
of mankind) have had some such notion as this; some idea of
religion, and of a moral law of right and wrong.

Where did they get it?

Where, I ask again, did they get it?

My friends, after much thought I answer, there is no explanation of
that question so simple, so rational, so probable, as the one which
the text gives.

"And they heard the voice of the Lord God."

Some, I know, say that man thought out for himself, in his own
reason, the notion of God; that he by searching found out God. But
surely that is contrary to all experience. Our experience is, that
men left to themselves forget God; lose more and more all thought of
God, and the unseen world; believe more and more in nothing but what
they can see and taste and handle, and become as the beasts that
perish. How then did man, who now is continually forgetting God,
contrive to remember God for himself at first? How, unless God
himself showed himself to man? I know some will say, that mankind
invented for themselves false gods at first, and afterwards cleared