There was indeed a true development in the church of God from the Abrahamic period to the Apostolic day.  There was a rising from a narrow national spirit to one which embraced the whole brotherhood of man, from type and prophecy to fulfilment, from the sins that were winked at, to a purer ethic and the perfect law of love; but these results came not by natural evolution—­far enough from it.  They were wrought out not by man, but we might almost say, in spite of man.  Divine interpositions were all that saved Judaism from a total wreck, even as the national unity was destroyed.  A new Dispensation was introduced, a Divine Redeemer and an Omnipotent Spirit were the forces which saved the world from a second universal apostasy.

We come nearer still to the church of God for proofs of man’s inherent tendency to polytheism.  Even under the new Dispensation we have seen the church sink into virtual idolatry.  Within six centuries from the time of Christ and His apostles there had been a sad lapse into what seemed the worship of images, pictures, and relics, and a faith in holy places and the bones of saints.  What Mohammed saw, or thought he saw, was a Christian idolatry scarcely better than that of the Arabian Koreish.  And, as if by the judgment of God, the churches of the East were swept with a destruction like that which had been visited upon the Ten Tribes.  In the Christianity of to-day, viewed as a whole, how strong is the tendency to turn from the pure spiritual conception of God to some more objective trust—­a saint, a relic, a ritual, an ordinance.  In the old churches of the East or on the Continent of Europe, how much of virtual idolatry is there even now?  It is only another form of the tendency in man to seek out many devices—­to find visible objects of trust—­to try new panaceas for the ailments of the soul—­to multiply unto himself gods to help his weakness.  This is just what has been done in all ages and among all races of the world.  This explains polytheism.  Man’s religious nature is a vine, and God is its only proper support.  Once fallen from that support, it creeps and grovels in all directions and over all false supports.

We have not resorted to Divine revelation for proofs except as history.  But our conclusions drawn from heathen sources bring us directly, as one face answereth to another face in a glass, to the plain teachings of Paul and other inspired writers, who tell us that the human race was once possessed of the knowledge of One Supreme God, but that men apostatized from Him, preferring to worship the creature rather than the Creator.  There are no traces of an upward evolution toward clearer knowledge and purer lives, except by the operation of outward causes, but there are many proofs that men’s hearts have become darkened and their moral nature more and more depraved.  In all lands there have been those who seemed to gain some glimpses of truth, and whose teachings were far above the average sentiment and character of their times, but they have either been discarded like Socrates and the prophets of Israel, or they have obtained a following only for a time and their precepts have fallen into neglect.  It has been well said that no race of men live up to their religion, however imperfect it may be.  They first disregard it, and then at length degrade it, to suit their apostate character.