The worship of one God passed into the worship of the powers and objects of nature. This grew out of a natural awe at the sight of the mighty forces evidently at work and yet inexplicable to the nations in their uncultured state. Their habits of life were simple. While they journeyed, as they tilled their fields, or fed their flocks, their attention was drawn to the sky, now clear, now cloudy; to the sun, now shining in beauty, now obscured in the darkness of night; to the day-dawn and the sunset, to the resurrection of vegetable life in the spring, the growth of crops through the heat of summer, the ripening harvests of autumn, and the cold of winter and the barrenness of earth. They gazed in awe upon the storms; upon the lightning as it glared in the midst of the dark, black clouds; upon the tall trees bending beneath the strong winds; upon the mountains shaking in the earthquake or vomiting their contents with rumblings, and flame, and smoke. They listened in astonishment to the noise of thunder, to the whistling, and sighing, and roaring of the wind. With wonder they saw the earth into which they cast their seed return it to them in the manifold harvest; they watched the fruits and grains mature and ripen. All about them mysterious processes were going on, which they could not comprehend. Were these processes moved by a Strong Arm? were they under the control of a Mighty Power? or were they self-moved and guided by their own inner, hidden forces? Contact with nature kindles the imagination. In early days almost all of the nations were herdsmen and agriculturists. Their dwellings were simple and such as each could erect for himself; their food was such as each could provide for himself by the chase, or from his own flocks or from his own fields. A few were selected to be the rulers of the rest, or to pursue some simple mechanical pursuits. But the majority were brought into the closest contact with nature. Their poetic imaginations began to see life in nature’s powers and objects, they began to personify these and then to people them with creatures of their own minds’ making. They saw reflected their own passions and conditions in the events of nature. They credited the beings dwelling in the skies, or storms, or stars, with feelings, passions, quarrels like their own. When the sky was clear, when the winds were gentle, when the seas and lakes were unruffled in their calm repose, when the destructive powers of nature were at rest, they imagined that these beings were at peace among themselves. But when the skies were overcast, when the winds arose in fury, when earth and sea were convulsed, these beings were angry and at war with each other. Finding themselves unable to contend with these strong powers, unable to resist their overwhelming influences, they gradually recognized the beings dwelling in them as superior to themselves, and their awe and mystery led them to give these superior beings the place of gods.