Uniform rhythmic motion is a powerful means of intensifying collective suggestion; and its action is the more potent the more we yield our minds to the control of their unconscious activities,—the realm in which the religious sentiment is supreme.
In the initiation ceremonies of the Australians—called the _Bora_—the youth are obliged to listen to long speeches from the old men, containing instructions in conduct and the ancestral religious beliefs. Such customs as this,—and in one or another form they are universal in primitive religions—led to the development of the art of Oratory. It was cultivated assiduously in primitive conditions. We have several volumes largely filled with the prolix addresses of the Aztec priests and priestesses on various solemn occasions, as birth, entering adult life, marriage, etc.[290] To learn these long formulas by heart was one of the duties, and not an easy one, of the neophytes.
In most tribes they are couched in forms apart from those of daily use, the words being unusual, with full vowels and sonorous terminations. Some of these peculiarities survive in the “pulpit eloquence” of our own day, testifying to the influence of religious thought on the development of the modes of dignified expression.
It was in this connection and under this inspiration that man invented the greatest boon which humanity has ever enjoyed,—a system of writing, a means of recording and preserving facts and ideas. Our present alphabet is traced lineally back to the sacred picture-writing of ancient Egypt; and the less efficient method employed by the natives of Mexico and Central America originated in devices to preserve the liturgic songs and religious formulas. For generations, in both areas, its chief cultivation and extension lay with the priestly class: although its final application to the uses of daily life was due to merchants rather than to scholars.
This discovery made possible such a treasure as a literature; and that we find its beginnings and oldest memorials chiefly of religious contents is ample testimony to this incalculable debt we owe to the religious sentiment. The papyri of Egypt, the codices of Central America, the Sanscrit Rig Veda, and the Persian Vendidad testify to the diligence with which the ancient worshippers sought to preserve the sacred chants and formulas.