Common sense
taught them that.
But what kind of person must he be, thought they, who sent the
flood? Surely a very dark, terrible, angry God, who was easily and
suddenly provoked to drown their cattle and flood their lands.
But the rainbow, so bright and gay, the sign of coming fine weather,
could not belong to the same God who made the flood. What the
fancies of the heathen about the rainbow were matters little to us:
but they fancied, at least, that it belonged to some cheerful,
bright and kind God. And so with other things. Whatever was
bright, and beautiful, and wholesome in the world, like the rainbow,
belonged to kind gods; whatever was dark, ugly, and destroying, like
the flood, belonged to angry gods.
Therefore those of the heathen who were religious never felt
themselves safe. They were always afraid of having offended some
god, they knew not how; always afraid of some god turning against
them, and bringing diseases against their bodies; floods, drought,
blight against their crops; storms against their ships, in revenge
for some slight or neglect of theirs.
And all the while they had no clear notion that these gods made the
world; they thought that the gods were parts of the world, just as
men are, and that beyond the gods there was the some sort of Fate,
or necessity, which even gods must obey.
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