about him; but he seems to have been unknown by the family of that pious patriarch. His descendants, however, we soon find in the regions of Chaldea and Assyria, though, by many able and learned writers, it is thought they had no concern in the building of Babel. They feared God. They maintained among them the true religion. They were the branch from which Christ was to come. God was their God, and Christ their Redeemer ; and, if they sometimes partook of the general corruption around them, and "served other gods," yet the gates of hell were never suffered to prevail against them.

In the providence of God, the world, which had been in so awful a manner depopulated, was soon filled with inhabitants. Japhet had seven sons. These settled Armenia and Greece, and from them came the present inhabitants of Europe and the United States. Ham had four, whose posterity filled Babylonia and Arabia—Canaan and Egypt. Shem five. From these descended the Assyrians, Persians, Jews, Hindoos, and Chinese, and aborigines of America. These were the sons of Noah" after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."*

Some will ever affirm that the Negro, the Chinese, the European and the American Indian could not have had a common origin; but the candid enquirer after truth will receive the testimony of God and by this be satisfied that all mankind descended from the patriarch who was preserved in the ark.

CHAPTER V.

Early defection from the true religion.

History of Idolatry.

old world, did not eraEven Ham, the young

THE awful judgment of God upon the dicate depravity from the human heart. est son of the patriarch Noah, one who had witnessed all the wonders of the flood, soon exhibited an unnatural and depraved spirit, and went out, like Cain, with his posterity, from the presence of the Lord, an ungodly generation. The Cushites, his immediate descendants, were probably the chief families that were concerned in the building of Babel; but neither were

* Gen x.

they brought back to the Lord by the new and fearful judgment 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 Shechemites; 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. Rimmon, an idol of the Assyri

ans. 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 worshipped 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 t emples, 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 honored with some great festival, which was the holyday of thousands, and was honored 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 enquiries 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 des olations of many generations." India has her 300 million dei

ties. Her images are brass, wood and stone. Her 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?

idolater is a sincere But Paul assures

"Be

Some would charitably suppose that every worshipper of his creator and benefactor. 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; 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 remark. ably free.

PERIOD II.

FROM THE CALL OF ABRAHAM ΤΟ THE

EMBRACING 1921 YEARS.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH OF CHRIST;

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.

He was

ABRAHAM was born in the 2008th year of the world; 352 years after the flood, and 1996 years before Christ. the son of Terah; and the tenth, in a direct line, from Noah. His ancestors, for many generations, lived in Ur of the Chaldees whence his father came into the regions of 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 depositary 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 shew 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