o, Pharaoh means, 'The Sun-God';
the Ammonites mean, 'The people who worshipped the ram as a god';
Potiphar means, 'A fat bull,' which the Egyptians used to worship;
and I could tell you of hundreds of heathen names more, like these,
which are ridiculous enough to make one smile, if we did not keep in
mind what tokens they are of sin and ignorance, and the likeness not
of God, but of the beasts which perish.

Then comes another set of names, showing a lower fall still, when
heathens have quite forgotten that man was originally made in God's
likeness, and are not only content to live after the likeness of the
beasts which perish, but pride themselves on being like beasts, and
therefore name their children after dumb animals,--the girls after
the gentler and fairer animals, and the boys after ravenous and
cruel beasts of prey. That has been the custom among many heathen
nations; perhaps among almost all of them, at some time or other.
It is the custom now among the Red Indians in North America, where
you will find one man in a tribe called 'The Bull,' another 'The
Panther,' and another 'The Serpent,' and so on; showing that they
would like to be, if they could, as strong as the bull, as cruel as
the panther, as venomous as the serpent. What wonder that those Red
Indians, who have so put on the likeness of the beasts, are now
dying off the face of the earth like the beasts whom they admire and
imitate?

And this was the way with our own heathen forefathers before the
blessed Gospel was preached to them. It is frightful, in reading
old histories, to find how many Englishmen, our own forefathers,
were named after fierce wild beasts, and tried, alas! to be like
their names--children of wrath, whose feet were swift to shed blood,
under whose lips was the poison of adders, and destruction and
bloodshed following in their paths, not knowing the way of peace.
The wolf was the common wild beast of England then; and there are, I
should say, twenty common old English names ending in wolf, besides
as many more ending in bear, and eagle, and raven. Fearful sign!
that men of our own flesh and blood should have gloried in being
like the wolf, the cruellest, the greediest, the most mean of savage
beasts! How shall we thank God enough, who sent to them the
knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ, and called them to be new men in
Christ Jesus, and called them to holy baptism, to receive new names,
and begin new lives in the righteous lik