it was thus peopled, we learn not only from Moses, but from profane writers; and find both accounts confirmed by abundant evidence in the manners, traditions, language, and occupance of the different races at the present day. Sir William Jones found only three great original languages to exist-Arabic, Sclavonic, and Sanscrit: and these three all issue from one point, central Asia, whence, by consent of the most ancient records and traditions of the great primeval nations, their original ancestors spread.

But before they were thus scattered, they had corrupted the religious doctrines they had received from their great progenitor, Noah; or rather, had set them aside, in order to deify Noah and his three sons, whom they had come to regard as a re-appearance of Adam and his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. The singular coincidence of circumstances between Adam and Noah, forced this upon their imaginations. Adam, the first man, and father of the first world, and Noah, the first man, and father of the second world, had each three sons conspicuous in history; and of these three, one in each case was a bad one—Cain and Ham. Led by this, to consider the second family but an avater of the first, they regarded them as immortal, and worshipped them. Hence we have in all pagan mythologies a triad of principal gods. In the Greek-Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; in the Hindoo-Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; in the Egyptian-Osiris, Horus, and Typhon; one of whom, in each case, is a deity of a dark nature, like Cain and Ham. The Persians had their Ormuzd, Mithras, and Ahriman; the Syrians, their Monimus, Aziz, and Ares; the Canaanites, their Baal-Shalisha, or self-triplicated Baal; the Goths, their Odin, Vile, and Ve, who are described as the three sons of the mysterious cow, a symbol of the ark; the Jakuthi

Tartars, their Artugon, Schugo-teugon, and Tangara, the last, even in name, the Tanga-tanga of the Peruvians: for this singular fact stops not with the great primitive nations; it extends itself to all others, even to those discovered in modern times. Like China and Japan, the Peruvians were found, on the discovery of America, to have their triads, Apomti, Churunti, and Intiquoaqui; or the father-sun, the brother-sun, and the son-sun. The Mexicans had also their Mexitli, Tlaloc, and Tezcallipuca; the last, the god of repentance. The Virginians, Iroquois, and various nations of North-American Indians, held similar notions. The New Zealanders believe that three gods made the first man, and the first woman from the man's rib; and their general term for bone is Eve. The Otaheitans had a similar idea.

Thus, far and wide, to the very hidden ends of the earth, spread this notion of a triad; and hence, in the second century, it found its way, through Justin Martyr, into the Christian church.

The post-diluvians likewise held the Ark in the most sacred veneration. It was that into which their great father and all living things had entered and floated away safely over the destroying waters. It was the type of the earth into which Adam had entered by death; and, as they supposed, re-appeared in Noah. Hence, an ark is to be found in nearly every system of pagan worship. After it were fashioned the most ancient temples. It was borne in the most religious processions of Osiris, Adonis, Bacchus, Ceres, and amongst the Druids; and has been found, to the astonishment of discoverers and missionaries, amongst the Mexicans, the North-American Indians, and the South-sea Islanders.

Hence, also, the doctrine of a succession of worlds, from the supposed re-appearance of Adam and his

three sons, in Noah and his three sons, which has expanded itself into the great system of transmigrations and avaters of the Hindoos. Hence, also, the traditions of a universal deluge to be found amongst all the ancient nations; amongst the wild tribes of America; amongst the Hindoos in the east, and the Celts in the west. Hence, the close connexion of lakes with heathen temples; and hence, lastly, the ancient mysteries, which were but a symbolical representation of entering the ark, or great cave of death and life; which, as the old world was purified by the flood, was supposed to purify and confer a new life on those who passed through those mysteries, which were celebrated, with striking similarity in Greece, India, Egypt, and amongst the Druids in these islands. These, and many other general features of paganism for abundant illustration of which, I refer my reader to the learned works of Calmet, Bryant, Faber, and Spencer, De Legibus Ritualibus Hebræorum-sufficiently testify to the common origin of all heathen systems of worship; and we shall presently find how amply the priests of all ages and all the Gentile nations, have laid hold on these rich materials, and converted them into exuberant sources of wealth, and power, and honour to themselves, and of terror, deception, and degradation to their victims-the people.

It may, perhaps, be said that they themselves were but the slaves of superstition, in common with those they taught; and that it would be unfair to charge them with the wilful misleading of their auditors, when they themselves were blinded by the common delusions of their times and countries. But we must recollect, that though the people were taught by them to believe, and could not, in dark times, easily escape the influence of their doctrines and practices, studiously adapted to dazzle and deceive the senses, yet it

was impossible for the priests to enter upon their office, without discovering that those terrors were fictitious,—without finding that they were called upon to maintain a series of utter fallacies. The people might listen to oracles, uttered amid a multitude of imposing pageants, and awful solemnities; in the sacred gloom of temples and groves; and might really believe that a god spoke. But where were the priests? Behind these scenes!—and must soon have found that, instead of the inspiration of a present god, they themselves were the actors of the vilest impositions; which, through the temptations of power, and fame, and wealth, they became the willing means of fixing on their countrymen.

When did any one, in any nation, on discovering that he had entered an order of impostors, renounce their connexion, and abandon his base calling? Never!-the spirit of priestcraft was too subtly potent for him. He either acquiesced readily in measures, which were to him, pregnant with honour, ease, and abundance; or saw that instant destruction awaited him, from the wily and merciless spirit of priestcraft, if he gave but a symptom of abjuring, or disclosing its arcana of gainful deceit. As the entrance of the Adytus of the mysteries, so the vestibule of the priestly office was probably guarded by naked swords, and oaths full of destruction to the backslider. Be that as it may, there is not a fact on the face of history more conspicuous than this-that no order of men has ever clung to the service of its caste, or has fulfilled its purposes, however desperate, or infamously cruel they might be, with the same fiery and unflinching zeal as priests.

CHAPTER III.

MYTHOLOGY OF THE ASSYRIANS AND SYRIANS.

WE have now seen how idolatry was diffused over the globe, forming a field of no less amplitude than the world itself for priestcraft to exercise itself in ; full of ignorance, and full of systems prolific in all the wild creation of superstition so auspicious to priestly desires; and we shall soon see that such advantages were not neglected by that evil power, but were eagerly laid hold on, and by its indefatigable activity the earth was speedily overrun by every curse, and horror, and pollution, that can fix itself on unfortunate humanity.

We shall take a hasty survey of its progress in the most ancient nations, Syria and Assyria; we shall then pass rapidly into Scandinavia and the British Isles, following the course of Druidism; and, without regard to the order of time, glance at the confirmation of this ancient state of things, by that which was found to exist at the time of their discovery in America and the isles of the Indian Ocean. By this plan we shall leave our course clear in a direct progress through ancient Egypt, Greece, and Hindostan; where we shall leave the review of priestcraft as it existed in Paganism, and contemplate its aspect in Judea, under the direct ordinances of God; then, under Christianity, in the Romish church; and,