Face, and Motion of her Head, that
it is her Business and Employment to gain Adorers. For this Reason your
_Idols_ appear in all publick Places and Assemblies, in order to seduce
Men to their Worship. The Play-house is very frequently filled with
_Idols_; several of them are carried in Procession every Evening about
the Ring, and several of them set up their Worship even in Churches.
They are to be accosted in the Language proper to the Deity. Life and
Death are in their Power: Joys of Heaven and Pains of Hell are at their
Disposal: Paradise is in their Arms, and Eternity in every Moment that
you are present with them. Raptures, Transports, and Ecstacies are the
Rewards which they confer: Sighs and Tears, Prayers and broken Hearts,
are the Offerings which are paid to them. Their Smiles make Men happy;
their Frowns drive them to Despair. I shall only add under this Head,
that _Ovid's_ Book of the Art of Love is a kind of Heathen Ritual, which
contains all the forms of Worship which are made use of to an _Idol_.

It would be as difficult a Task to reckon up these different kinds of
_Idols_, as _Milton's_ was [3] to number those that were known in
_Canaan_, and the Lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped, like
_Moloch_, in _Fire and Flames_. Some of them, like _Baal_, love to see
their Votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their Blood for them. Some
of them, like the _Idol_ in the _Apocrypha_, must have Treats and
Collations prepared for them every Night. It has indeed been known, that
some of them have been used by their incensed Worshippers like the
_Chinese Idols_, who are Whipped and Scourged when they refuse to comply
with the Prayers that are offered to them.

I must here observe, that those Idolaters who devote themselves to the
_Idols_ I am here speaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of
Idolaters. For as others fall out because they Worship different
_Idols_, these Idolaters quarrel because they Worship the same.

The Intention therefore of the _Idol_ is quite contrary to the wishes of
the Idolater; as the one desires to confine the Idol to himself, the
whole Business and Ambition of the other is to multiply Adorers. This
Humour of an _Idol_ is prettily described in a Tale of _Chaucer_; He
represents one of them sitting at a Table with three of her Votaries
about her, who are all of them courting her Favour, and paying their
Adorations: She smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the
ot