died. Before this, however, she had succeeded in conveying this mysterious We to her children. Thus sickness and death overspread the world. Men became so corrupt that Nyesoa told them he could no longer dwell among them; and he withdrew to heaven. Before leaving, however, he assured them he should always take an interest in their affairs, and that he would leave among them a class of men through whom they could communicate with him. This class are the deyâbo, or demon-men."

In this narrative, continues Bishop Payne, "we have the professedly divine origin of gidu, or 'sassa-wood,' reminding one of the waters of jealousy,' and used all through Central Africa as a test of witchcraft and other crimes;the account, so nearly Scriptural, of God's dwelling with men, the introduction of evil by woman, and the deyâbo, representing almost exactly Balaam and the false prophets and oracles of all heathen countries;-the idea being, in all these cases, that the daimon of the Greks,-the Ku of the Greboes, is sent by Nyesoa, or the Supreme Being; and hence the responses or directions of those acting under the influence of these spirits have a divine sanction."

The fables which appear in the first heathen writings and which helped to form their religious systems, were doubtless founded, or partly so, on traditions which were then floating among the nations, and which had come down the stream of time, constantly becoming more muddy, as men perverted or added to the original truth: some of these writings, however, appeared after the glory of the riches and wisdom of Solomon, and doubtless some ideas of his religion, had spread over the earth. It may be that the Greeks, as they obtained their letters from the Phoenicians and the Hebrews, may also have attained the foundations of some of these ideas from that source.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

DOCTRINAL TRUTHS RETAINED AMONG THE HEATHEN-ONE GOD -THE TRINITY-THE WORD OF GOD, THE CREATOR-GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH-THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOULGHOSTS-AN ATONING SACRIFCE.

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OT only were the prominent facts of creation, and of the world's early history, as recorded by Moses, retained by all nations; but likewise, many of those great doctrines of revealed truth, upon a proper knowledge of which man's happiness depends. They also retained, in some form or other, the divinely appointed mode of approach to God through an atoning sacrifice. Let us now examine the views of some of these doctrines held by the early heathen.

One God.-The heathen, with their innumerable gods, generally acknowledged one, as supreme. Homer, one of the earliest heathen writers, speaks of Jupiter, as having the attributes of the true God, in such expressions as these, "O thou supreme, high throned, all height above.” Supreme of gods, unbounded and alone."

"Father of gods and men."

Before this, Orpheus had written,

"All things were made by God,"

And Hermes, the most ancient of Egyptian writers, wrote, "The Lord of eternity is a great God."

"It belongs to the great God to see all things,

And to be seen of none."

Referring to the existence of an eternal being, the Crea

tor of the world, Aristotle said, "There is one God, the king and father of all; and many gods, sons of gods, coreigners with God; these things both the Greeks and barbarians alike affirm." Plutarch said, Though there were one, fifty, or an hundred worlds, they were all subject to one supreme, solitary, and independent God. He also informs us that the inhabitants of Thebais, one of the ancient divisions of Egypt, never would acknowledge any mortal god; but worshipped an unmade, eternal Deity. The Stoics held one God supreme and eternal, while the world was full of gods and demons: the latter created by the one God, and one day to be destroyed by him. Most of the ancient philosophers considered the gods as being part of the Supreme; and used the term gods and god as synonymous. The Buddha and Brahma of India were the same with Jupiter. Their votaries, who never mingle on other occasions, will meet and worship together at the dreadful feast of Juggernaut or Jagan-Nath, " The Lord of the earth," their great common Lord. The American Indians retained so clear a view of the one Great and Good Spirit (though they also worship the evil one), and they were also so free from the cruelties connected with the idolatries of the ancient world, that some have supposed them to be remnants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This general acknowledgment of the Supreme God, the poet Pope, more celebrated as a poet than as a Christian, refers to in his universal prayer,

"Father of all, in every age,

In every clime adored

By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord."

Mixed with these apparently clear views of the one Great God, these first heathen writers introduced the most ridiculous fables which succeeding writers added to, and perverted, until the gods they worshipped, by the characters

they gave them, and the actions they attributed to them, were monsters of iniquity, and more vile and licentious than the worst of men.

The Trinity.-Among the names which God has employed to reveal himself to us is that Great Name, "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;" three persons in one God. It is remarkable, that the doctrine of the Trinity has been retained, or has found its way in some form, in almost all the great religions of the earth.

The histories of Adam and of Noah, and of the three sons of each, which are named in the Bible, doubtless contributed to this. The fathers of the race were united by tradition, and were looked up to and worshipped as their gods throughout the whole heathen world. Homer, who systematized the pagan mythology, clearly shows this. After speaking of Saturn and Rhea, the first beings of the earth, he makes one of their sons, Neptune, say,

"Three brother Deities from Saturn came,
And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame.
Assigned by lot—our triple rule we know."

These three were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; the great gods of the ancient heathen, though called by different names. The rest were lesser gods.

The Persians had also their threefold distribution of the Deity; assigning to Oromasdes, Mithras, and Aramanes different works; calling Mithras the Mediator or middle. The Hindoos have their first great father, Brahm; an absolute unity beyond the grasp of human understanding. As the creator, he is called Brahma; as the preserver, Vishnu ; and as the renovator, Siva; these three relations of the divine being constitute the trinity, Timourti, of the Hindoos. The Tartars worshipped a deity under three several names. The Buddhists, in China, have also a triplicating father. The Goths had their Odin, Vile and Ve, sons of Bura, the

offspring of the mysterious Con-that is, born of the Ark. The Chaldeans said, "In the whole world shineth forth a Triad or Trinity, the head whereof is Monod or Unity." The Orphic system had its Phanus, Uranus, and Chronus. Pythagoras taught "The first one or unity is above all essences; the second is ideas, and intelligible; the third is the soul of the world, and partakes of the first two."

The ancient philosophers spoke of the three operations of the great Deity in such a way, that in after times, many of the early Christians were misled to think their systems differed but little from the Bible.

The Word of God, the Creator.-The Bible tells us, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was God;" "all things were made by him."1 The heathen obtained some

knowledge of this. In India, Vach or speech, is the active power of Brahma. In Egypt, while Amanis was the hidden god, Phtha was the god by whom he produced the world,was the manifested god. In Persia, Ormazd, the good, created the world by Honovu, the word.

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God manifest in the flesh.-The Bible adds, "The word was made flesh." This great mystery," "Emmanuel," * "God manifest in the flesh," has been a part of all religions heathen as well as Christian. All the gods of the heathen were once men, or had at times assumed the human form. When the Apostle Paul, while traveling with Barnabas, had cured an impotent man, the people of Lycaonia cried out, "The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men," calling one Jupiter, and the other Mercurius, they wanted to offer sacrifices to them. The transformations or incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Hindoo trinity, form the principal subject of their sacred books.

Not only have the early appearances of the Creator re

1 John i. 1, 3, 14.

2 John i. 14.

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41 Tim iii. 16. Acts xiv. 12.

3 Matt. i. 23.