Ashtaroth, Astarte, queen of Heaven, Artemis, Diana, Moon, the lady of the lovely night, and the host of heaven, the brilliant attendants of her court; or, in her absence, reigning in graduated splendour and dignity alone. These are to the young mind the gods of admiration, composure, and joy, ordaining a worship of gratitude, order, harmony, and love.

Their angels and messengers are splendid auroras, rapid aerolites, lovely meteors, and bright coruscations, reflections and refractions of light.

The frightful eclipse obscuring the lord of the Day, and threatening with extinction the lady of the Night; the comet advancing in the terrors of increasing flame to consume the world-terrible meteors blazing through the discoloured hazeimpenetrable darkness, the hurricane, the storm with its lightnings and thunderings, the earthquake, the volcano, destroying or threatening destruction. These are the gods of Fear, Alarm, and Terror inducing worship in prayer, sacrifice and discontent.

Inundation, pestilence, fire and famine are the engines and ministers of these gods. Their messengers are shadows, apparitions and ghosts.

The gods of terror are the most intensely worshipped with tears, and prayers, and sacrifices, to obtain or purchase their favour or allay their wrath.

The gods of love obtain admiration and love, and joy, they spontaneously bestow all their bounties and blessings. Gratitude offers the fruits of the season, and the wine which cheereth the hearts of gods and men.

Of supplication they have no need, or of the flesh or the blood, or the sweet savour of sheep, oxen, or goats. Their gifts are spontaneous. They require no bribe.

The gods of terror are the patrons of the priest, who, ministering in their service, and supplying their voracity, is of course entitled to his reward.

This was the general phase of the worships which prevailed in Asia west of Euphrates in the time of the Hebrew judges and their earlier kings.

Worships of Palestina Major.-It is not proposed to inquire into the innumerable and irreconciliable superstitions with which Canaan and the neighbouring countries were afflicted, or the fantastical rites and ceremonies by which they were attended; but merely as to such of those which most affected the Hebrew and

mixed peoples of Palestine, and with which the Adonites were in constant conflict.

Elohim, the powers, the gods, or the concentration of all powers. However low an estimate Semitic nations may have entertained of Deity, they differed little from the scientific in using the word El for god, and Elohim for gods, the powers or the concentration of the powers deemed divine.

El and Elohim were common to these peoples, one of which was the Hebrews.

Baal was, like Adoni, a word of dignity, and was the proper name among some of the Palestinians, including Hebrews, other than Adonians,. of their god or chief god, and Baalim of the associated gods or powers, Baal, Ashtaroth, and the host of heaven. Baal was regarded as being, in fact, or as indicating, the sun; Ashtaroth (Astarte) as being, in fact, or as indicating, the moon. And they and the stars from their actual influences were regarded as living, vigorous, active powers, interested in the affairs of the earth over which they appeared in alternations to reign, and to pour their blessings.

The word Baal retained its dignity among the people of Judea to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and was, like Adoni, associated with proper names. Indeed, it maintained its predominance in the popular worship, notwithstanding all the declamations and stratagems of the Adonite writers and priests.

Baal-Shemesh of the Hebrews, Beel-Samun of the Phoenicians, god of the Sun or lord of Heaven, seems to have been a general title of the Palestinian god.

Baal-Perusim, the lord of springs, or the bursting out of waters, appears to have been the appellation of a Philistine deity, whose temple or sanctuary David destroyed in one of his wars. As this was near Jerusalem, the title may have been recognized in other parts of Palestine.

Baal-berith, the god of the covenant, of contracts, and good faith, was common to the Canaanites and Hebrews; his temple was preserved at Shechem after it was acquired by Gideon. The Adonites alone repudiated the god of good faith.

Baal-Shalisha is supposed by some to have been a sort of trinity, a triune god: if more reliance than we are prepared to accord to them can be placed on their arguments, it may have indicated the past, present, and future, the self-existent, the eternal, the "I am," the "Yahaveh" of the pentateuch.

Baal-Peor, the god of mount Peor, merely implies that Baal was worshipped there. Some impute to his worship obscene rites, but without any authority worthy of notice. Hosea ix. 10, is cited: "I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your prophets as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time; but they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that shame, and their abominations were according as they loved." Shame and abomination were epithets by which the levitical prophets civilly described all gods but their own.

Baal-Tamar, god or goddess of the Palm, was probably a local epithet, indicative of a region of palms, perhaps adopted in Jericho or its neighbourhood-the City of Palms-and by the Christians in the procession of their god.

Baal-zeboth, the god of hosts of the Philistines, the El-Sabaoth among the Hebrews (corrupted by levitical vulgarity into Beelzebub, god of flies), is in the New Testament mentioned as the chief of the popular gods. This vituperative expression is introduced into the gospels.

Baal is sometimes described by a name as indicative of two sexes, and at other times Baal and Astharoth are described (Baalim) as husband and wife, implying the life-producing, progenitive or fertilizing powers; as Osiris and Isis among the Egyptians, Zeus and Here among the Greeks, and Jupiter and Juno among the Romans, and many other deities of these nations, and of almost every other people. The idea is not absent from the Christian faith -Jesus is the son of god by a woman. Yet in Calmet, p. 507, we find, "It would seem as if idolatry were called fornication, because fornication was attendant on idolatry, and no wonder, as the changing or united sexes of the idols contributed to promote that crime in their worshippers-certainly not less than companions of each sex were objects of their adoration." He cites these passagesJudges ii. 13; iii. 7; vi. 38; x. 6; 2 Kings, xvii. 16; xxi. 3, &c.; he infers (we question the accuracy of the inference) that "Ashreth or Ashtoreth was the female companion of Baal." And in these sentiments many pious Christians concur.

Might not one of the idolaters say, "Take the beam out of thine own eye before thou takest the mote out of mine."

The reader need hardly to be reminded that fornication, adultery, abomination, and even an unmentionable vice, are expressions by which the Adonites calumniate every worship but their The use of them has no reference to morals.

own.

Adonis is a name of Baal, as the god of joy. The worship of Adonis, though wide spread, was not universal. It was almost confined among the Phoenicians and Canaanites to the female sex. It had not the dignity of the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth. It was celebrated during a festival of joy on the approach of spring-a May-day of dancing and flowers, when the May-pole is as seriously worshipped by Christians as Adonis was by Syrian maids.

There was also a funeral festival or fast of mourning, for Adonis, when, on the approach of winter, the summer god departed, but not without hope of resurrection in spring.

Ezekiel viii. 14-16. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Adoni's house, which was toward the north, and behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Adoni's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of Adoni, between the porch and the altar, were about 25 men, with their backs toward the temple of Adoni, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

The greatness of the abomination does not appear to have consisted in any indecency or impropriety of worship, but in the desecration of the shrine which the prophet was anxious to appropriate to his own cult.

The women mourning for the temporary death of their god on the banks of the encrimsoned river Adonis, and uttering imprecations against the tooth of the cruel wild boar which had gored him, and the women weeping for Tammuz (Adonis) in the court of the temple of Jerusalem, and the women joining in the joyous festival on his resurrection at the return of spring, bear a typical resemblance to mournings and festivals throughout Europe at the present day.

The distinction is, that with the former, only the god of the seasons; with the latter, that the only god of the universe was temporarily dead.-Are these the results of similar sentiments, or, are they variations from some ancient myth?

Which is the most absurd, the village girls weeping and throwing flowers on the imaginary grave of their fairy idol, or a pontiff or priest at this day proclaiming the unity of trinity, and the trinity of unity, and that an indivisible member of that

trinity in unity, that is, the whole trinity and unity, their god of the universe, was for 3 days dead and buried in an earthly tomb. The universe during that period must have been without a god.

How does this consist with the doctrine of a momentarily superintending personal god?

Chemosh is the name under which the Moabites are described as worshipping Baal-it is said to mean swiftness, and so to evince their notion of the sun. It is probable that the religious notions of the people of Moab to a great extent accorded with those of their Canaanite neighbours, with some variation arising from the Arabian worship of the south and east, yet the Arabian notions of deity differed not much.

The most terrible name under which Baal was worshipped was Molech, Moloch, Milcolm, or Milcom, regarded by the Hebrews as, more peculiarly, an Ammonite god. His worship, however, extended into Palestine and far beyond.

It was, probably, a designation applied to Baal as the god of fire.

The peculiar terror to his name arose from its association with the ceremony of initiating children into the worship of Baal by passing them between two fires, as Adonians and others were initiated by circumcision, and Christians by water and the sign of a

cross.

The destruction of the children by fire was not physical, but allegorical. According to levitical writers, especially the prophets, dedication to any worship, except their own, was destruction, as attending it was called whoredom, fornication, and other foul names. However, the fire did as little harm to, and inflicted less pain upon, the children than the Jewish rite. This was the baptism of Hezekiah.

Both of the most pious kings of Judah, Hezekiah and Josiah, had been consecrated to Molech by this baptism of fire. Had passing through the fire been, as by some interpreted, an actual sacrifice by immolation to Molech, neither of these pious princes would have lived to destroy his altar, and murder his priests.

It does not appear that Ahaz had any son, except Hezekiah, and the text to be cited indicates that Hezekiah was his only son, yet

2. Kings xvi. He (Ahaz) walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire according to