How soon after the dawn of intellect the conception of Deity was evolved in the human brain it is equally impossible to say; but the probability is that the date was a very early one, for it seems highly probable that such a conception would be among the very first efforts of the mind, the materials necessary for the stimulation of such an effort being at hand at any moment. We can imagine our early fathers groping in the darkness of ignorance, with mental powers on a par with those of the awakening minds of our own children, seeing bogies in every natural phenomenon, and tremblingly glowering at the spectra of their own imaginations. Having no experience of the past or knowledge of the future, they would indeed be in a most helpless condition, relying entirely upon the instinctive capabilities they had inherited from their ancestors. By degrees, however, their various faculties would be further awakened by impressions received from external objects; their wants would be multiplied in proportion to their intellectual development, causing them to manifest a desire for industry; and their self-consciousness would arouse within them a feeling of dignity and importance to which they had hitherto been strangers. Thus gradually would the race cast off its animal and put on its human clothes. The old plan of hand-to-mouth existence would be abolished by the newly-developed reason of man; the innumerable dangers which confronted him would undoubtedly stimulate him to approach his fellows with the object of establishing mutual aid and of co-operating for their common welfare; and a feeling of confident superiority over others of the animal kingdom would become apparent among them. Not only would man’s attention be arrested by the impending dangers of each day, the necessity of procuring sustenance for himself and family, and the obvious advantages accruing from co-operation, but also by the constantly-recurring natural phenomena, such as the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars, the never-ending succession of day and night, etc., as well as by the no less wonderful, and certainly more awful, occasional natural occurrences, such as lightning, thunder, and earthquake. He would be as much struck with wonder and amazement at the one set of phenomena as with awe at the other. The returning sun-light would each morning produce joy in his heart equally as much as the inevitable recurrence each night of darkness would produce a feeling of sadness, dread, and despair. We can easily imagine the long hours of horror our first fathers must have passed through each night among the yells and howls of the savage monsters by which they were surrounded, and how they anxiously looked forward to the return of that glorious orb which would bring back to them daylight, sunshine, warmth, and happiness. What a boon it must have been to them! Can we wonder that they should have regarded the sun with particular affection? It would