hip, but resting on a unity as to its commencement and its
object.

{29}

We can hardly penetrate the veil which hides from us the pagan worship of
that early human stock the race of Ham, which--without the divine light
granted only to the Israelites--was the origin of false worship. We can
only arrive at conclusions, but these are the result of strong presumptions
arising from undisputed historical facts. What are they?

One of the principal chiefs of the earliest race, whence came the magi,
&c., was Nimrod, afterward deified by the name of Bel to the Chaldeans,
Baal to the Hebrews, [Greek: Belos] to the Greeks, and Belus to the Romans;
and when, in later days, statues received adoration (which at first was
only accorded to the being of whom the statue was a type), he became
worshipped under a multiplication of statues, they were in the Hebrew
language called "Baalim," or the plural of Baal. Nimrod was the son of
Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. "And Cush begat Nimrod:
he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the
Lord: wherefore it is said, 'Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the
Lord.' And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,
and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. And out of that land he went forth to
Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen
between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."[30] While, then, {30}
the children of Shem and Japheth pursued the patriarchal course, and
preserved the ancient traditions subsequently handed down, the descendants
of Ham, suffering under the patriarchal malediction of Noah, built cities
composed of families, and a great kingdom composed of cities and nations.
This kingdom was the origin of pagan worship. They lost the patriarchal
traditions, and were the first to establish on this earth the concentration
of power in a political system. That power once attained, the daring energy
of the king became in the hand of the priesthood a subject of deification
for two reasons. 1. The king was mortal, and must die. 2. The power must be
preserved. When afterward, under Peleg, this race, at their {31} building
of Ba-Bel--their temple of Bel--became dispersed, and left to us only their
ruin of that temple, now called _Birs Nimroud_, the magi, or priests,
preserved the power he attained to themselves, by means of secrecy in their
mysteries, and which were dispersed subsequently thr