One more hymn is even more distinct in its monotheism, p. 569. "In the beginning there arose the source of golden light. He was the only born Lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? He who gives life. He who gives strength; whose blessing all the bright gods desire; whose shadow is immortality; whose shadow is death.... He who, through His power, is the only King of the breathing and the awakening world. He who governs all--man and beast.... He whose power these snowy mountains, whose power the sea proclaims, with the distant river. He whose these regions are, as it were, His two arms.... He through whom the sky is bright, and the earth firm. He through whom the heaven was 'stablished, nay, the highest heaven. He who measured out the light in the air.... He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up, trembling inwardly. He over whom the rising sun shines forth.... Where-ever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed, and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the only life of the bright gods.... He who, by His might, looked even over the water-clouds, the clouds which gave strength, and lit the sacrifice. He _who is God above all gods_.... May He not destroy us. He, the creator of the earth; or He, the righteous, who created the heaven. He who also created the bright and mighty waters." In this hymn I have only omitted the repeated question--Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? Of the high antiquity of these productions no competent scholar entertains a doubt. It is not certain how many years before our era it was composed, but it is considered that it was prior to B. C. 2000, long before the time when the ideal Moses is said to have written, and _a fortiori_ anterior, by at least a thousand years, to the authors of the Book of Psalms. Talboys Wheeler remarks, p. 27--"Having thus sketched generally the individual character of the leading deities of the Aryans as they appear in the Rig Veda, it may be advisable to glance at that conception of One Supreme Being, as in all and above all, which finds full expression in the Vedic hymns. Upon this point the following passages will be found very significant:--'Who has seen the primeval being at the time of His being born? what is that endowed with substance that the unsubstantial sustains? from earth are the breath and blood, but where is the soul--who may repair to the sage to ask this? What is that One alone, who has upheld these six spheres in the form of an unborn?'" Then follows the hymn just quoted from M. Mueller. I may add that the so-called gods Indra, Agni, Surya, the Maruts, &c., are only personifications of the abstract powers of nature, the sky, fire, the sun, the winds, &c. These are the same conceptions as are referred to in Ps. civ. 1-4--they are not deities, but ministers.