ng onward and founding Mexico; calling it - name of their chief deity. ote all the passages which seem especially or our purpose would fill this volume; but I ect one or two. The description of the idol : m a huge throne, with four huge silver snakes, s if the keeper of the sanctuary ircled, with stretching neck and fangs displayed, exitli sat; another graven snake elted with scales of gold his monstrous bulk. round his neck a loathsome collar hung f human hearts; the face was masked with gold; is specular eyes seemed fire; one hand upreared club, the other, as in battle, held he shield; and over all suspended hung 'he banner of the nation. chief priest, Tezozomoc, when about to prele Hoel to the idol, and the child, terrified at eous appearance, shrieks and recoils from His dark aspect, Which nature with her harshest characters Had featured, art made worse. His cowl was white; Struck, with quick instinct, to young Hoel's heart. No gentle feeling ever had disturbed : Which when he probed a victim's living breast, whole work is alive with the machinations, arts, matic deeds of the priesthood. The king of the 5, in an early conference with Madoc, says, ng of the priests, Awe them, for they awe me; Is queen, after he has been killed in battle, and C ecessor, Take heed, O king! vicked men! They to the war lord. . . Thou knowest, and I know, rangers; that his noble mind, their lore, had willingly = cursed altars! As she spake er to the stone. . . Nay: nay! she cried, t force! I go to join my lord! nine be on you! Ere she ceased, in her breast. Tezozomoc, wrath, held up towards the sun art. s terminated, Madoc declares, dwell among us,-that hath been l this misery! CHAPTER VI. EGYPT. of Egypt notorious-Involved in the same already noticed-Robertson's Theory of the Creeds insufficient, and why-Egyptian sive Veneration of Animals, and consequent cts-Horrid and licentious Customs-Policy onceal Knowledge from the People; place Nobles and even the Kings; regulate all the ings-Striking Illustrations of the verity of the History of Joseph-Priests supposed to in Egypt for ages. traversed an immense space of ne; and found one great uniform t, one uniform system of paganism, oppressing the semi-barbarous nait remains for us to inquire whether ations of antiquity, Greece, Egypt, celebrated for their science, phi same mighty and sin find it triumphing in its highest perfectio The priestridden to all readers of hi "the mother-land had the lordly and to fix themselves completely to deba whelming abundan country swarmed which, in themselve objects of adoratio making gods of the garden-beds by tho O sanctas gente Numina! and dogs, cats, liz To show that was part of the cing, a part of t but little labour. losophers thems ighty and singular influence; and here we shall riumphing in its clearest form, and existing in est perfection. priestridden condition of Egypt is notorious eaders of history. Lord Shaftesbury calls it, mother-land of superstitions." So completely lordly and cunning priesthood here contrived hemselves on the shoulders of the people, so tely to debase and stupify them with an overng abundance of foolish veneration, that the - swarmed with temples, gods, and creatures, in themselves most noxious or loathsome, were of adoration. Juvenal laughs at them, as gods of their onions; growing gods in their beds by thousands O sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascunter in hortis gs, cats, lizards, and other creatures were cherwith extraordinary veneration. Diodorus Sicus, that a Roman soldier having by accident a cat, the common people instantly surrounded use with every demonstration of fury. The guards were immediately despatched to save om their rage, but in vain; his authority and man name were equally unavailing. accounts we possess, of the extreme populousancient Egypt; of the number and splendour temples; of the knowledge and authority of riests; and the mighty remains of some of their buildings, sufficiently testify to the splendour solute dominance of this order in this great m. show that the priestcraft of this ancient realm rt of the same system that we have been trapart of that still existing in India, will require le labour. We shall see that the Greek phiers themselves assert the derivation of their ned men, which nation borrowed its ther. The fact appears to be, that from the other, but that both drew source, a source we have already of the Cuthic tribes. Egypt was Idren of Ham: and by whomsoever the great priestly and military caste y there, and introduced the very , founded on the worship of Noah shadowed out with emblems and ed from the memory of the flood. the highest antiquity; both arrived nowledge of astronomy, of archiof the mechanic arts, of governain moral and theologic philosophy, retained to themselves, and made ty engine to enslave the people. was carefully shrouded from the Dulace were crammed with all sorts ties; and were made to feel the disthe hands of the priesthood, as eviural powers. n his Disquisition on Ancient India, of America, has endeavoured to exy of pagan belief, by supposing that d everywhere be influenced by the s and appearances of nature;-by ence of the sun and moon; of the the contemplation of the awfulness mpests and thunder; and would come eat objects as gods. But this will, ount for the striking identity of the and practices of paganism, as we existing. Different nations, espedifferent aspects of widely divided ave imagined widely different deiemonies in which they would have Id have been as infinite as the vaga ries of the human produced gods so whoever went from distant, among pe genius, would hav great father, mul teries, substanti to suppose the work of chan clearly shall w The Egypt of gods-H popular one; tellectual nat had also thei but they had need not enun shrine its trai ced gods so positively of the same family, that, ver went from one nation to another, however t, among people of totally different habits and is, would have immediately recognised their own and have given them their own names? Would ar and Tacitus have beheld Roman gods in Gerand Gaul? Herodotus, Pluto, and Pythagoras found those of Greece in Egypt? Would these be, in every country, attended by the same tranary theory of origin,-the three sons of one father, multiplying themselves into the eight ons of the original gods-the precise number of e enclosed in the ark? Would traditions of the in all countries, most full and remarkable, and, e oldest Hindoo writings, almost word for word the one in the Bible, have existed, as may be in the histories of the various countries; and as be found carefully collected by Faber and Bryant heir works on the pagan mythologies? This d not be ;-nor would so many nations, in different of the world, retain the ark; nor celebrate myss, substantially the same, in the same terrific ner in caves; nor would they have all hit on the id sacrifice of men; nor the same doctrine of trans"ation; nor have permitted an imperious caste of sts and nobles to rule over them with absolute ination. To suppose all this to happen, except one great and universal cause, is as rational as ppose the system of earth and heaven to be the k of chance: and the further we go, the more rly shall we see this demonstrated. 'he Egyptians, like all other nations, had their triad ods;-Horus, Osiris, and Typhon. This was the ular one; but the priests had another of a more inectual nature, Emeph, Eicton, and Phtha. They also their great mother Isis, Ceres, or the earth: they had besides many inferior deities, which we d not enumerate. Every god had his shrine; every ine its train of priests; besides which there were |