THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR










PREFATORY NOTE

BY THE EDITOR.


The growing interest both in this country and abroad in the historical
study of religions is one of the noticeable features in the
intellectual phases of the past decades. The more general indications
of this interest may be seen in such foundations as the Hibbert and
Gifford Lectureships in England, and the recent organization of an
American committee to arrange in various cities for lectures on the
history of religions, in the establishment of a special department for
the subject at the University of Paris, in the organization of the
Musée Guimet at Paris, in the publication of a journal--the _Revue de
l'Histoire des Religions_--under the auspices of this Museum, and in