And just as the general theory of evolution includes the unity of bodily structure and mental faculty, so it will vindicate what may be called the unity of the religious consciousness. The old classifications based on the idea that religions consisted of a body of doctrines which must be true or false, reached by natural reflection or imparted by supernatural revelation, disappear before a wider view. Theologies may be many, but religion is one. It was after this truth that the Vedic seers were groping when they cried, "Men call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; sages name variously him who is but one"; or again, "the sages in their hymns give many forms to him {35} who is but one." When the Roman Empire had brought under one rule the multitudinous peoples of Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern and Middle Europe, and new worships were carried hither and thither by priest and missionary, soldier and merchant and slave, the titles and attributes of the gods were freely blended and exchanged. Thinkers of different schools invented various modes of harmonising rival cults. When "Jupiter best and greatest" was surrounded by a vast crowd of lesser deities, the philosophic mind discerned a common element running through all their worship. "There is one Supreme God," wrote Maximus of Madaura to Augustine, about A.D. 390, "without natural offspring, who is, as it were, the God and Mighty Father of all. The powers of this Deity, diffused through the universe which he has made, we worship under many names, as we are all ignorant of his true name. Thus it happens that while in diverse supplications we approach separated, as it were, certain parts of the Divine Being, we are seen in reality to be the worshippers of him in whom all these parts are one." Here is the prayer of a Blackfoot chief of our generation in the great ceremonial of the Sun-Dance, reported by Mr. McClintock,[6] which blends the implications of theology with the impulses and emotions of religion-- [6] _The Old North Trail_, 1910, p. 297. "Great Sun Power! I am praying for my people that they may be happy in the summer {36} and that they may live through the cold of winter. Many are sick and in want. Pity them and let them survive. Grant that they may live long and have abundance. May we go through these ceremonies correctly, as you taught our forefathers to do in the days that are past. If we make mistakes, pity us! "Help us, Mother Earth! for we depend upon your goodness. Let there be rain to water the prairies, that the grass may grow long and the berries be abundant. "O Morning Star! when you look down upon us, give us peace and refreshing sleep. "Great Spirit! bless our children, friends, and visitors through a happy life. May our trails lie straight and level before us. Let us live to be old. We are all your children, and ask these things with good hearts." {37} CHAPTER II THE PANORAMA OF RELIGIONS