According to this theory, religions, like everything else, have grown up from simple germs:  and it is only in the later stages of his development that man can be said to be a religious being.  While an animal merely, and for a time even after he had attained to a rude and savage manhood, a life of selfish passion and marauding was justifiable, since only thus could the survival of the fittest be secured and the advancement of the race attained.[125] It is fair to say that there are various shades of the theory here presented—­some materialistic, some theistic, others having a qualified theism, and still others practically agnostic.  Some even who claim to be Christians regard the various religions of men as so many stages in the divine education of the race—­all being under the direct guidance of God, and all designed to lead ultimately to Christianity which is the goal.

That God has overruled all things, even the errors and wickedness of men, for some wise object will not be denied; that He has implanted in the human understanding many correct conceptions of ethical truth, so that noble principles are found in the teachings of all religious systems; that God is the author of all truth and all right impulses, even in heathen minds, is readily admitted.  But that He has directly planned and chosen the non-Christian religions on the principle that half-truths and perverted truths and the direct opposites of the truth, were best adapted to certain stages of development—­in other words, that He has causatively led any nation into error and consequent destruction as a means of preparing for subsequent generations something higher and better, we cannot admit.  The logic of such a conclusion would lead to a remorseless fatalism.  Everything would depend on the age and the environment in which one’s lot were cast.  We cannot believe that fetishism and idolatry have been God’s kindergarten method of training the human race for the higher and more spiritual service of His kingdom.

Turning from the testimony of the Scriptures on the one hand and the a priori assumptions of evolution on the other, what is the witness of the actual history of religions?  Have they shown an upward or a downward development?  Do they appear to have risen from polytheism toward simpler and more spiritual forms, or have simple forms been ramified into polytheism?[126] If we shall be able to establish clear evidence that monotheistic or even henotheistic types of faith existed among all, or nearly all, the races at the dawn of history, a very important point will have been gained.  The late Dr. Henry B. Smith, after a careful perusal of Ebrard’s elaborate presentation of the religions of the ancient and the modern world, and his clear proofs that they had at first been invariably monotheistic and had gradually lapsed into ramified forms of polytheism, says in his review of Ebrard’s work:  “We do not know where to find a more weighty reply to the