* * * In all this [_i. e._, in virtue and good morals], a superstitious man finds nothing, which he has properly performed for the sake of his deity, or which can peculiarly recommend him to divine favor and protection. * * * * But if he fast or give himself a sound whipping, this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No other motive could engage him to such austerities.” The philosopher here sets forth in his inimitable style a marked characteristic of religious acts. But he touches upon it with his usual superficiality. It is true that no religion has ever been content with promoting the happiness of man, and that the vast majority of votaries are always seeking to do something specifically religious, and are not satisfied with the moral only. The simple explanation of it is that the religious sentiment has a purpose entirely distinct from ethics, a purpose constantly felt as something peculiar to itself, though obscurely seen and often wholly misconceived. It is only when an action is utterly dissevered from other ends, and is purely and solely religious, that it can satisfy this sentiment. “_La religion_,” most truly observes Madame Necker de Saussure, “_ne doit point avoir d’autre bût qu’elle même_.” The uniform prevalence of these ideas in rites may be illustrated from the simplest or the most elaborate. Father Brebeuf, missionary to the Hurons in 1636, has a chapter on their superstitions. He there tells us that this nation had two sorts of ceremonies, the one to induce the gods to grant good fortune, the other to appease them when some ill-luck had occurred. Before running a dangerous rapid in their frail canoes they would lay tobacco on a certain rock where the deity of the rapid was supposed to reside, and ask for safety in their voyage. They took tobacco and cast it in the fire, saying: “O Heaven (_Aronhiaté_), see, I give you something; aid me; cure this sickness of mine.” When one was drowned or died of cold, a feast was called, and the soft parts of the corpse were cut from the bones and burned to conciliate the personal god, while the women danced and chanted a melancholy strain. Here one sacrifice was to curry favor with the gods, another to soothe their anger, and the third was a rite, not a sacrifice, but done for a religious end, whose merit was specific performance. As the gift was valued at what it cost the giver, and was supposed to be efficacious in this same ratio, self-denial soon passed into self-torture, prolonged fasts, scourging and lacerations, thus becoming legitimate exhibitions of religious fervor. As mental pain is as keen as bodily pain, the suffering of Jephthah was quite as severe as that of the Flagellants, and was expected to find favor in the eyes of the gods.