into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections."_

The whole of this awful and well-founded accusation, which contains in it things not to be so much as named among us, is given in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, from the twenty-first verse to the end. And he who has read the Satires of Juvenal, or is at all acquainted with the history of those times, cannot dispute for a moment the fidelity of the apostle's testimony.

It is the first principle of our nature to believe the existence of a God; and the first dictate of our reason, that, admitting this existence, we are bound to serve him, to obey him, and to sacrifice whatever we hold most dear to his demand. This is the dictate of reason, assisted or unassisted by the light of revelation. The Bible has directed this conviction to a proper object; and has specified the sacrifice which we should make, and the offering which duty requires us to present, when it says, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." When "darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people," the self-same principles were held; but alas! they were not directed to a right object! It is affecting to see the wretched and ignorant sons of men obeying the dictates of reason on this point, and, convinced that sacrifices ought to be presented to the Deity, concluding that he was

"altogether such an one as themselves," and forming a false estimate of his character and perfections, offering all that was most precious to them, to the extinction of parental feeling, and in contempt of the voice of humanity. See yonder Druid, with fierceness glaring in his eyes, and the consecrated branch in his hand, polluting thy soil, O Britain! with the ashes of hundreds of victims consumed in an enormous image! But soft -we promised to produce examples only from polished nations, and from empires at the zenith of their glory. And we shall not have read far in the pages which record the brightest splendors of antiquity, before we find the "pitiful woman," offering her first born for her "transgression, the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul;" the mother "forgetting her sucking child," and "ceasing to have compassion upon the son of her womb." My heart fails me, and the blood curdles in my veins with horror, when I recollect that it was a custom common among the Carthaginians to sacrifice children to Saturn. The statue of that idol was of brass, and formed with extended arms; but so constructed, as to suffer whatever was placed upon them, to fall into a fierce fire; flaming in a furnace at the foot of the image. The trembling parent approached with a countenance of ease which ill concealed the anguish of the heart, and presented his child. The distracted

mother imprinted, with a parched lip, a last kiss upon the blooming cheek of her smiling infant. The ferocious priest, clothed in scarlet, received the unconscious babe from the maternal embrace; and placing it on the arms of this infernal image, it fell into the fire. At that instant the drums were beat, and the air rang with acclamations from the surrounding multitude, to cover the agony of the bereaved parents, and

to drown the shrieks of the consuming victim! On one occasion,* two hundred children of the first families in Carthage were thus immolated! and on their annual sacrifices, those who had no children were accustomed to purchase those of the poor for this horrible purpose.†

These are thy boasted triumphs, O reason! May God graciously preserve to us the teachings of the scriptures! At this mournful review of the blood-stained trophies of cruel and inexorable superstition, surely every parent must feel the necessity, and value the blessing of a divine Revelation! Hail Christianity! It was thine to teach us "a more excellent way:" it was thine to overthrow the altars erected to an "unknown God," and defiled with human blood: it was thine to do away the impure rites which cannot be named without a blush, for the weakness and the wickedness of human nature: it was thine to roll the dark protentous cloud from the understanding: it was thine to demand the peaceful, noble sacrifice of the body by the crucifixion of its lusts and passions! And it is a reasonable service; for it is consonant with the purest dictates of reason: it is not a grievous service: it violates no principle of nature: it tortures no feeling of humanity. It is the only reasonable service which man can offer, and which is worthy the acceptance of Deity: yet which, but for the light of Revelation, had never been discovered. Thy peace-speaking voice requires no blood to be shed; for the "sacrifice for sin" has already been presented in the death of Jesus Christ: it requires no mortification of our feelings but such as are depraved, and which were introduced into the mind by sin; but which are

• When Agathocles was about to besiege Carthage. ↑ Plutarch de Superstitione. See also note 2, at the end of the volume.

not the genuine feelings of humanity, because they were not implanted in the day when God made man "in his own image." The only slaughter demanded on thy altar, is that of vice and immorality, of a bitter, unforgiving spirit, of a proud, imperious, untractable disposition, of a useless, ungodly life!

But we passion to another review of the state of the heathen world; and argue the necessity of a divine revelation, from

II. THEIR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS; AND THEIR DEFECTIVE

MORALS.

Vice was tolerated;

1. THEIR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS. the principles of humanity were violated; and parental feelings tortured. Suicide was esteemed the strongest mark of heroism; and the perpetrators of it, who ought to have been branded with everlasting infamy, were celebrated by their historians and poets, as men of superior minds. Implacable hatred to enemies was deemed a virtue; and an unforgiving spirit was cherished, and esteemed manly fortitude. Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, caused his child, at the age of nine years, to swear, that he would never be reconciled to the Romans. The infamous traffic with human blood was permitted in its utmost extent; and, alas! is continued this day among nations professedly Christian; although the mild and gentle precepts of the gospel plead against it; and religion and humanity unite their voices to demand of the oppressor, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth from the ground!" Permission was given to the citizens, on certain occasions, to kill their slaves. One of the wisest legislators of the heathen world, commanded that all children should be exposed, who appeared in any

respect maimed or defective, and thus was the horrible practice of destroying infants who did not seem likely to be of service to the state, not merely openly tolerated, but expressly instituted. The result of these prevailing opinions and pernicious institutions, was as might be expected,

2. A MOST DEFECTIVE SYSTEM OF MORALS. Depravity was the inevitable consequence of so barbarous a system. The world was an aceldama-a perpetual scene of violence on some occasions, when it was agitated by ambition; and on others, in seasons of peace, was polluted by every abominable and nameless vice. Virtue was a mere shadow-a name. It was serviceable as a subject of eulogy in the schools; but was little reduced to practice; and for the most part, their very virtues leaned to the side of unnatural severity. In the fragments of antiquity, we meet with some beautiful pieces of morality: but unfortunately the history of those times proves, that the deportment even of the persons who wrote these admirable precepts, contradicted all their recommendations; and that they broke, one by one, every rule which they prescribed to others. We are moved with pity in reviewing ages when men thought and wrote so well; and lived so immorally. So many vices were called by the name of virtue, that it is difficult to imagine, what they would call vice, save cowardice. Their most eminent and enlightened characters were guilty of crimes not to be recited; and the general character of the whole heathen world was, that they were "given over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which were not convenient." The palaces of the Cæsars raised their imperial turrets to the skies, crowned with matchless magnificençe: but within, they were stained with every species of impurity. It'