of heaven inflicted upon them. The whole of that country through which they were dispersed, was, in a few centuries, almost entirely idolatrous; so that even the generation of the righteous, drawn in by the general corruption, were accused of serving other gods" than Jehovah.

If there were others less vile and ferocious; others, who had a high veneration for Noah, and who would religiously commemorate the deluge and the re-peopling of the earth, still their descendants soon perverted the whole, and canonized and worshipped those memorable incidents. Among all the eastern nations, therefore, we find many allusions, in religious rites, to Noah and his ark, the dove, the olive branch; indeed, almost a complete mythological history of the deluge.

Having once departed from the living God, the nations multiplied to themselves deities with amazing rapidity. As the most striking objects in nature and the mediate source of all good to men, the heavenly bodies soon attracted veneration.

Renowned men, who had been the benefactors or scourges of their race, were in great numbers enthroned on high. But gods were found in every thing. Egypt, settled by Mizraim, the second son of Ham, was the fruitful mother of abominations. There the earth, sea, hills, rivers, animals, fishes, birds, plants and stones received homage. Later nations deified abstract qualities, fame, piety, truth, and even physical evils, evil fortune, and several, the very vices of men. Some of the gods were supposed to be good, and the authors of happiness; others, cruel and malignant, the authors of all misery. Every nation, city and family, in time, had its respective deity; and through complaisance, the heathen nations adopted all gods of which they had any knowledge. The Athenians erected an altar to the Unknown God.

The principal Heathen deities mentioned in the history of the Jews, are Baal, or the Sun; Astarte or Ashtaroth, the Moon; several Baalim or Lords; as Baal Peor, a god of the Moabites; Baal Berith, or god of the Covenant, a god of the Schechemites; Baal Zebub, a tutelary deity in the city of Ekron, that protected the people from gnats; Moloch, or the planet Saturn, which was worshipped as a god who devoured his own offspring. The statue of Moloch, erected in the valley of Hinnom, was of brass. Its arms were stretched out; upon these children were placed, and as the arms declined, they rolled off into a furnace of fire, placed below. Dagon, a female deity, the goddess of the Philistines; also Rimmon, an idol of the Assyri

ans; and Chiun or Saturn, whose tabernacles or small shrines the Israelites carried with them in the wilderness.

Discontented with a pure spiritual worship, men early began to form images of the true God. The Jews made a calf to represent Jehovah, probably because they had seen the Egyptians worship Apis, a bull, as God. Micah had an image of Jehovah. The Heathen carried imagery to a great extreme. They wor shipped nothing without an image. The images were at first rude blocks of wood or stone. These were afterwards carved with care into every form and shape. The Teraphim were images in the human form. Some idols were part man and part beast. Dagon, of the Philistines, had a human body terminating below in a fish. One of the Egyptian deities had the head of a dog; another, the head of a bird. Some of the gods were made of precious metals, or covered with silver or gold, and adorned with the most costly vestments.

As they became precious, slight buildings were erected over them to protect them from the weather. These were soon succeeded by splendid temples. The Goddess Diana had a most magnificent temple at Ephesus. Sometimes groves were planted around the temples, especially if the deity was a patron of licentiousness.

The deities, it was believed, might be induced to enter the images and grant such favours as were desired, by certain ceremonies, incantations and sacrifices; whence arose a vast multitude of rites and ceremonies; sacrifices; oblations; and an immense priesthood, whose business it was to attend upon them. Their sacrifices were victims, salt cakes, libations, honey, incense. Almost every distinguished god was honoured with some great festival, which was the holiday of thousands, and was observed by sports and solemn processions and great feastings. Sacrifices were accompanied with prayers, followed by loud shouting and leaping, and wounds upon the body. These false deities demanded no morality of their worshippers and even knew none themselves. Often were they supposed guilty of the grossest vices and abominations. And to please them, an imitation of their wickedness formed part of their worship.

Out of idolatry early arose divination and necromancy. Many pretended to an intimacy with the deities; to the power of working miracles and the knowledge of future events. These wonder-workers were held in high esteem in the time of Moses and Belteshazzar. In later periods Oracles were established, from which it was pretended that the god spake; answering the inquiries of mortals. Dreams were thought to come from the gods; and all nations, particularly the Romans,

gave much heed to omens and prodigies-such as monsters, comets, eclipses, the flight of birds, and entrails of beasts.

The light of philosophy had, in some measure, opened the eyes of men in civilized Europe to the fooleries of idolatry, when Christ appeared; but it was three centuries before Christianity obtained a triumph over the gods of Rome. But little variation has probably been made in those countries which still remain pagan, from their former state. They have, from the days of Nahor, "served other gods,"*-are "old wastes, the desolations of many generations.' India has her three hundred million deities. Her images are brass, wood and stone. horrid idol Juggernaut is drawn in a splendid car. Most of the islands of the Pacific have been, until of late, in the same awful bondage. When, O when shall they all cast their gods to the moles and the bats?

Her

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Some would charitably suppose that every idolater is a sincere worshipper of his Creator and benefactor. But Paul assures us that idolatry originated in the depravity of the heart. cause that when they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things.' And the correctness of his declaration is evinced by the moral character of the whole heathen world. Through every generation, in every clime, it has been vile and abominable beyond what language can express. The picture of it in his day, drawn by Paul in the close of the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, is the best ever presented to the world, and is a correct representation of Heathen immorality in every period of time. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, despiteful, haters of God, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful;-who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

* From idol worship the aborigines of America have been remarkably free.

PERIOD II.

FROM THE CALL OF ABRAHAM TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST ; EMBRACING 1921 YEARS.

CHAPTER I.

Call of Abraham. Institution of Circumcision, and establishment of the Jewish Church. Destruction of the cities of the plain. State of religion in the world.

ABRAHAM was born in the 2008th year of the world; 352 years after the flood, and 1996 years before Christ. He was the son of Terah; and the tenth, in a direct line, from Noah. His ancestors lived in Ur of the Chaldees: whence his father came into Mesopotamia, expelled, if we may credit a traditionary account recorded in the book of Judith, by the idolaters, for his worship of the true God. Even they, however, were seduced into the heaven-provoking abomination, and bowed down, to some extent, to idols. "Your father," said God, by Joshua, "dwelt on the other side of the flood (the Euphrates) in old time; even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods." Besides Abraham, Terah had two sons, Nahor and Haran, and one daughter, Sarai, who became Abraham's wife. Though she was his sister she was of a different mother. Haran was the father of Lot and died in Ur.

As the nations were becoming corrupt with amazing rapidity, and true religion was in danger of being extinct in the world, God selected this family to be the depository of truth. He appeared to Abraham in the 75th year of his age, directed him to leave his country and his kindred, and go to a land he would show him, and promised that he would bless him and give him a numerous posterity, and that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. This was the third time that the covenant of grace had been revealed by God to his Church. It

was first made known to Adam and Eve, when the Lord assured them that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. It was renewed with Noah and his sons, when they came out of the ark. And now, it was presented to Abraham with still greater fulness. Christ was promised from his loins; and in him, it was declared, that all the families of the earth should be blessed. This was a great ERA in the Church.

Confiding in the word of the Lord, this pious patriarch took Sarai his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance, passed to Sichem, in the land of Canaan, and there built an altar unto the Lord. There again, God appeared to him, and renewed covenant with him. Finding a grievous famine in the land, he went to Egypt, where he came near losing his wife, because she was very beautiful, and was known only as his sister. But God interposed for her rescue, and made his power and his wrath known to the Egyptians. When the famine had ceased, Abraham returned to Canaan, laden with much wealth, and divided the land with Lot. There he became a man of great substance and strength: having 318 servants in his household, and being able to wage effectual war with the plundering nations around him. God often appeared to him; assuring him that he was his shield and his exceeding great reward; accepting his sacrifices and confirming the promises. On a certain occasion, Melchisedec, king of Salem, a priest of the most high God, met him and blessed him in the name of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.

But though Abraham believed the word of the Lord, that in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed, yet so long was the promised heir delayed, that he foolishly took to himself Hagar, his Egyptian maid; and became the father of a son whom he called Ishmael. But this was not the promised seed. So far were all the nations from being blessed in him, that the angel of the Lord prophesied concerning him, "He will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." His posterity, the Arabs, have, to this day, been thieves and robbers, unsubdued by any people.

age,

At length, however, when God had well tried the faith of the patriarch, he gave him in the hundredth of his year the promised son; again renewing with him his covenant for an everlasting covenant, promising that he would be a God to him and to his seed after him, and instituting the ordinance of circumcision; which was to seal to them the covenant of grace, and bind them to an observance of all its requisitions.