Far from animism being the root of theism, more often it is rather the ivy that grows up about it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the demands of religion and morality are so burdensome to men, they will ever seek short-cuts to salvation; and the intercession of presumably corruptible courtiers will be secured to win the favour, or avert the displeasure, of the rigorously incorruptible and inexorable King, who is "no respecter of persons." Except among Jews and Christians, the Supreme Being is nowhere worshipped with sacrifice--that service of food-offering being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible to gentle bribery. The great God of conscience is naturally the least popular object of cultus; though, were the animists right, He should be the most popular, seeing He would be the latest development demanded and created by the popular mind. But contrariwise, He tends to recede more and more into the background, behind the ever-multiplying crowd of patron-spirits, guardians, family-gods; till, as in Greece and Rome, He is almost entirely obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped"--the End, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process of degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the lucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to whittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and easy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the fat of rams, for charity. We need only look to the history of Israel and of the Christian Church to see all these tendencies continually at work, and only held in check by innumerable interventions of Divine Providence, and of that Spirit which is always striving with man. Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the Supreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual powers, yet it is _sui generis_, and of an infinitely higher order. The familiar distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ seems to obtain everywhere; as also that between _Elohim_ and _Javeh_, that is, between supernal beings in general, and the Supreme Being who is also supernal. Yet so excessive in quantity is the secondary cultus compared with the primary, that an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that there is nothing beyond what meets the eye on every side. As has been said, the Supreme Being alone is usually considered above the weakness of caring for sacrifice, or for external worship in "temples made with hands." His name is commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those mysteries of initiation which are met with so universally. Outside these mysteries He may only be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque, irreverent, designed to conceal rather than to reveal. But rarely is there an image or an altar to this unknown God.