and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the
departed, and God himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after
having been a tailor and dressmaker.

The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The
shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell
mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he
really inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas,
his dream, for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious
monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and
naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks,
deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw
and wing--with beak and hoof--with leering look and sneering mouths--
with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and with all
the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of
the dark.

It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in
the long night has suffered: of the tortures he has endured,
surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the
fierce phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling
knees--that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood.
No wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for
aid. No wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's
door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to
hear his bitter cry of agony and fear.

The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses
faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a
multitude of spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally