was the patriarchal, and this
also admitted of corruption into idolatry. The great patriarch,
venerable by age and wisdom, when he left this earth for the spirit
world, was supposed there, in the presence of God, to be the special
guardian of his children on earth. Some of the gods of Egypt and of
Greece were obviously of this character, and in China and Polynesia we
see at this day this kind of idolatry in a condition of active
vitality.

4. As stated in the text, the mythology of Egypt and Greece bears
evident marks of having personified certain cosmological facts akin to
those of the Hebrew narrative of creation. In this way ancient
idolators disposed of the prehistoric and pre-Adamite world, changing
it into a period of gods and demigods. This is very apparent in the
remarkable Assyrian Genesis recovered by the late George Smith from
the clay tablets found in the ruined palace of Assurbanipal.

5. In all rude and imaginative nations, which have lost the distinct
idea of the one God, the Creator, nature becomes more or less a
source of superstitions. Its grand and more rare phenomena of
volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder-storms, eclipses, become supernatural
portents; and as the idea of power associates itself with them, they
are personified as actual agents and become gods. In like manner, the
more constant and useful objects and processes of nature become
personified as beneficent deities. This may be, to a great extent, the
character of the Aryan theology; but, except where all ideas of
primitive religion and traditions of early history have been lost, it
can not be the whole of the religion of any people. The Bible
negatively recognizes this source of idolatry, in so constantly
referring all natural phenomena to the divine decree. In connection
with this, it is worthy of remark that rude man tends to venerate the
new animal forms of strange lands. Something of this kind has probably
led some of the American Indians to give a sort of divine honor to the
bear. It was in Egypt that man first became familiar with the strange
and gigantic fauna of Africa, whose effect on his mind in primitive
times we may gather from the book of Job. In Egypt, consequently,
there must have been a strong natural tendency to the adoration of
animals.

The above origins of idolatry and mythology, as stated or implied in
the Bible, of course assume that the Semitic monotheistic religion is
the primitive one. The first deviations from it