The valleys of the Nile, of the Euphrates, and of the Tigris have revealed facts for the theologian’s benefit that are almost exhaustless.  In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and in the religious hymns and the ritual of which they formed part in the sacred literature of Babylonia, there is proof that four thousand years ago hymns were sung in honour of the gods, and prayers were offered to propitiate them and secure their favour.  But belief in God had place long before these hymns were sung or these prayers offered.  This is shown by the existence of words in the most ancient hymns, prayers, and inscriptions which could not have been used unless the ideas which they conveyed had already existed in men’s minds.  These words—­some of which are preserved in modern tongues—­when traced to their roots, help greatly to explain the character of early religious thought, and prove the existence of a widely diffused belief in the Divine Being and His government.  They serve as confirmation of a belief, which is in harmony with many facts, that God had revealed Himself to humanity before He furnished the revelation which has come down to us.  Words are not originated by accident.  They are expressions of real existences, and before they found place in hymns or prayers the ideas which they denoted must have been matters of faith or knowledge to those who used them.  Before man is found professing faith in pagan deities some idea of God must have existed in his mind.  Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and so the idea of the Divine became perverted, and in its first simplicity was lost, and the multitude followed numberless shadows all illusory and vain.  Still, there lingered remnants and traditions of belief in a Divine Creator and Governor which must have originated in such a primeval revelation as the book of Genesis records.  We find there the statement that God revealed Himself to our first parents by direct intercourse.  They heard and saw and talked with God.  They therefore knew of the existence of God by personal perception, and the ideas they held regarding Him were founded on His own manifestation of Himself.

Closely connected with this consciousness is the sense of responsibility universally prevalent.  There is a law written on the heart of every rational human being, under the guidance of which he recognises a distinction between good and evil, right and wrong.  He possesses a faculty to which the name of conscience has been given, that convicts him of sin when he violates, and approves his conduct when he conforms to, its dictates.  However much different peoples and different ages may be at variance in their particular ideas of what is right and what is wrong, the conception itself has place in all of them.  There are certain fundamental notions as to what is just and what is unjust, what is virtuous and what is vicious, that find universal or all but universal acceptance.  This power of distinguishing between right and wrong