Book III. to their fiery. If unsuccessful he is loaded with reproaches: f fuccefsful he is entitled to a fhare of the capture. They make a feaft for him, rubbing his fnout with choice fat; and when the entertainment is over, they accompany the foul of the idol a little way, beating. the air with their cudgels. The Oftiacs have another idol, that is fed with milk fo abundantly, as to come out on both fides of the spoon, and to fall down upon the vesture; which, however, is never washed, fo little is cleanliness thought effential to religion by that people. It is indeed wonderfully abfurd, to think, that invifible fouls require food like human creatures; and yet the fame abfurdity prevailed in Greece.

The ancient Germans, a fober and fenfible people, had no notion of reprefenting their gods by ftatues, nor of building temples to them. They worshipped in confecrated groves (a). The Egyptians, from a juft concep tion that an invifible being can have no resemblance to one that is vifible, employed hieroglyphical figures for denoting metaphorically the attributes of their gods; and they employed not only the figures of birds and beafts, but of vegetables; leeks, for example, and onions. This-metaphorical adjunct to religion, innocent in itself, funk the Egyptians to the lowest degree of idolatry. As hieroglyphical figures, compofed frequently of heterogeneous parts, refemble not any being human or divine; the vulgar lofing fight of the emblematic fignification, which is not readily understood but by poets and philofophers, took up with the plain figures as real divinities. How otherwife can it be accounted for, that the ox, the ape, the onion, were in Egypt worshipped as deities? But this must be understood of the vulgar only. It is fcarce fuppofable, that the better fort of people fhould think To grofsly; and we have the authority of Plutarch for doubting. In his chapter upon Ifis and Ofiris, he obferves that the Egyptians worshipped the bull, the cat, and other animals; not as divinities, but as reprefentatives of them, like an image feen in a glafs: or, as he expreffes it in another part of the fame chapter, "juft as (a) Tacitus de moribus Germanorum, cap. 9.

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The

we fee the refemblance of the fun in a drop of water." However this be, the Egyptian worship is an illuftrious inftance of the influence of devotion: how powerful must it be in its purity, when even in a wrong direction, it can force its way against every obstacle of common fenfe! And fuch refpect was paid to thefe animals, if we can truft Diodorus Siculus, that in a great famine, the Egyptians ventured not to touch the facred animals, though they were forced to devour one another. veneration paid to a cow in Hindoftan arofe probably from the fame caufe, viz. its having been used as a fymbol of the Deity. A fnake of a particular kind, about a yard long, and about the thickness of a man's arm, is worshipped by the Whydans in Guinea. It has a large round head, piercing eyes, and a fhort pointed tongue, and a fmooth fkin, beautifully fpeckled. It has a ftrong antipathy to all the venemous kind; in other refpects innocent and tame. To kill them being a capital crime, they travel about unmolested, even into bed-chambers. They occafioned, ann. 1697, a ridiculous perfecution. A hog, teazed by one of them, gnashed it with its tusks till it died. The prieft carried their complaint to the king; and no one prefumed to appear as counfel for the hogs, orders were iffued for flaughtering the whole race. At once were brandished a thousand cutlaffes; and the race would have been extirpated, had not the king intere pofed, reprefenting to the priests, that they ought to reft fatisfied with the innocent blood they had fpilt. Rancour and cruelty never rage more violently, than under the mask of religion.

It is amazing how prone the moft polifhed nations. formerly were to idolatry. The Tyrians befieged by Alexander, chained down Hercules, their tutelar deity, to prevent him from deferting to the enemy; which is faid to have been also practised in Sparta. The city of Ambracia being taken by the Romans, and every statue of their gods being carried to Rome; the Ambracians complained bitterly, that not a fingle divinity was left them to worship. How much more rational are the Hindoftan Bramins, who teach their difciples, that idols

Book III. are emblems only of the Deity, intended merely to fix the attention of the populace!

The first ftatues in Greece and Tuscany, were made with wings, to fignify the swift motion of the god, These ftatues were fo clumfy, as scarce to resemble human creatures, not to talk of a divinity. But the admirable ftatues executed in later times, were imagined to resemble moft accurately the deities represented by them whence the vulgar notion, that Gods have wings, and that angels have wings.

I proceed to what in the history of idolatry may be reckoned the second part. Statues, we have feen, were at first used as reprefentatives only of the Deity; but came afterward to be metamorphofed into divinities. The abfurdity did not ftop there. People, not fatisfied with the vifible deities erected in temples for public worship, became fond to have private deities of their own, whom they worshipped as their tutelar deities; and this practice fpread fo wide, as that among many nations every family had household gods cut in wood or ftone. Every family in Kamfkatka, has a tutelar deity in the fhape of a pillar, with the head of a man, which is fuppofed to guard the house against malevolent fpirits. They give it food daily, and anoint the head with the fat of fish. The prophet Ifaiah (a) put this fpecies of deification in a moft ridi culous light: "He burneth part thereof in the fire: "with part thereof he roafteth flesh of the refidue he "maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth "down, worshipping, and praying to it, and faith, De"liver me, for thou art my god." Multiplication could not fail to fink houfhold-gods into a degree of contempt expectation of good from them, might produce fome cold ceremonial worship; but there could be no real devotion at heart. The Chinese manner of treating their household gods, will vouch for me. When a Chinefe does not obtain what he prays for, "Thou "fpiritual dog," he will fay, " I lodge thee well, thou "art beautifully gilded, treated with perfumes and "burnt-offerings; aud yet thou with-holdeft from me

(a) Chap. 44.

"the neceffaries of life." Sometimes they faften a cord to the idol, and drag it through the dirt. The inhabitants of Ceylon treat their idols in the fame manner. Thor,-Woden, and Friga, were the great deities of the Scandinavians. They had at the same time inferior deities, who were fuppofed to have been men tranflated into heaven for their good works. These they treated with very little ceremony, refufing to worship them if they were not propitious; and even punishing them with banishment; but reftoring them after a time, in hopes of amendment. Domestic idols are treated by the Oftiacs not more reverently than by the people mentioned. But they have public idols, fome particularly of brafs, which are highly reverenced: the folidity of the metal is in their imagination connected with immortality; and great regard is paid to these idols, for the knowledge and experience they must have acquired in an endlefs courfe of time.

Saints, or tutelar deities, are fometimes not better treated among Roman Catholics, than among Pagans. "When we were in Portugal," fays Captain Brydone, the people of Caftlebranco were so enraged at St. An-, tonio, for fuffering the Spaniards to plunder their town, contrary, as they affirmed, to his express agreement with them, that they broke many of his statues to pieces; and one that had been more revered than the reft, they took the head off, and in its ftead placed one of St. Francis. The great St. Januarius himself was in imminent danger, during the laft famine at Naples. They loaded him with abuse and invective; and declared point-blank, that if he did not procure them corn by a fuch a time, he should be no longer their faint." The tutelar faint at Cattania, at the foot of Mount Etna, is St. Agatha. A torrent of lava burst over the walls, and laid waste great part of that beautiful city. Where was St. Aga tha at this time? The people fay that they had given her juft provocation; but that she has long ago been reconciled to them, and has promifed never to fuffer the lava to hurt them again. At the foot of Mount Etna, a ftatue of a faint is placed as a memorial, for having

prevented the lava from running up the mountain of Taurominum, and deftroying that town; the faint having conducted the lava down a low valley to the fea.

When a traveller once happens to deviate from the right road, there is no end of wandering. Porphyrius reports, that in Anubis, an Egyptian city, a real man was worshipped as a god; which is alfo afferted by Munucius Felix, in his apology for the Christians. A thoufand writers have faid, that the Tartars believe their high-prieft, termed Dalai Lama, to be immortal. But that is a mistake: his death is published through the whole country; and couriers fent even to Pekin, to intimate it to the emperor of China: his effigy, at the fame time, is taken down from the portal of the great church, and that of his fucceffor is put in its flead. The fyftem of the metampfychofis, adopted in that country, has occafioned the mistake. They believe, that the holy fpirit, which animates a Dalai Lama, paffes upon his death into the body of his fucceffor. The fpirit therefore is believed to be immortal, not the body. The Dalai Lama, however, is the object of profound veneration. The Tartar princes are daily fending prefents to him, and confulting him as an oracle: they even undertake a pilgrimage in order to worship him in perfon. In a retired part of the temple he is fhewn covered with precious ftones, and fitting ĉrofs-legged. They proftrate themfelves before him at a distance, for they are not permitted to kifs his toe. The priests make traffic even of his excrements, which are greedily purchased at a high price, and are kept in a golden box hanging from the neck, as a charm against every misfortune. Like the crofs of Jefus, or the Virgin's milk, we may believe, there never will be wanting plenty of that precious ftuff to anfwer all demands: the priests out of charity will furnish a quota, rather than fuffer votaries to depart with their money for want of goods to purchase. The perfon of the Japan Pope, or Ecclefiaftical Emperor, is held fo facred, as to make the cutting of his beard or his nails, a deadly fin. But abfurd laws are never steadily executed. The beard and the nails are cut in the night