The literary critic
says ancestor-worship is one of the great branches of the religion of
mankind. Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they
plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The dead
ancestor, now passed into a deity, goes on protecting his family and
receiving suit and service from them as of old. The dead chief still
watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends
and harming enemies, still rewards the right and sharply punishes the
wrong. That, then, was the kind of worship prevalent in the time of
Saul, and the gods were only the ancestors of the living. Well, this
may be admirable as science, but, as I summarized the long argument, I
felt as though something must give way.
Then we are told that our sacred book, the Old Testament, contains no
reference to the future life--rather ignores the notion, in fact. It
appears that, when Job wrote about the spirit that passed before him and
caused all the hair of his flesh to stand up, he meant an enemy, or a
goat, or something of that species. Moreover, when it is asserted that
Enoch "was not, for God took him," no reference is made to Enoch's
future existence. The whole of the thesis regarding the Shadow Land has
been built up little by little, just as our infinitely perfect bodily
organization has been gradually formed.
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