in existence, watching conduct, punishing breaches of his laws,
and, in some cases, rewarding the good in a future life. Of course
these are the germs of a sympathetic religion, even if the being
thus regarded is mixed up with immoral or humorous contradictory
myths. My position is not harmed by such myths, which occur in all
old religions, and, in the middle ages, new myths were attached to
the sacred figures of Christianity in poetry and popular tales.

Thus, if there is nothing "sacred" in a religion because wild or
wicked fables about the gods also occur, there is nothing "sacred"
in almost any religion on earth.

Mr. Hartland's point, however, seems to be that, in the Making of
Religion, I had selected certain Australian beliefs as especially
"sacred" and to be distinguished from others, because they are
inculcated at the religious Mysteries of some tribes. His aim,
then, is to discover low, wild, immoral myths, inculcated at the
Mysteries, and thus to destroy my line drawn between religion on
one hand and myth or mere folk-lore on the other. Thus there is a
being named Daramulun, of whose rites, among the Coast Murring, I
condensed the account of Mr. Howitt.[1] From a statement by Mr.
Greenway[2] Mr. Hartland learned that Daramulun's name is said to
mean "leg on one side" or "lame". He, therefore, with fine humour,
speaks of Daramulun as "a creator with a game leg," though when
"Baiame" is derived by two excellent linguists, Mr. Ridley and Mr.
Greenway, from Kamilaroi baia, "to make," Mr. Hartland is by no
means so sure of the sense of the name. It happens to be
inconvenient to him! Let the names mean what they may, Mr.
Hartland finds, in an obiter dictum of Mr. Howitt (before he was
initiated), that Daramulun is said to have "died," and that his